Crazy. Psycho. Insane. Mad. Odd. Witch. Over the short span of my life, I've been called those things and many more I chose not to think about but still, I wonder why people think those things of me.

Because
I
See
Ghosts.

No, I reprimand myself, it's only because my normal is different from everybody else's normal.

It's because I'm an outsider in the damned village of Harlem. It's because I stay alone in a burnt and depleted house all alone with my cat. It's because I'm named after my mother when nobody in Harlem names children after their mothers.

But to anyone else, it's because I'm crazy. And walking into the village center to get provisions only proved this fact.

My black boots kicked up snow as I stepped into the crowed, frozen square. I watched, my face carefully black, as every head turned to me and every voice dwindled to silence.

And God knows that there's no silence like the silence that follows in Maren Marrow's wake.

I pulled my fur shawl closer around my shoulders as I continued my ascension into the shopping booths. It was a week end, so naturally all the best vendors were open and everybody and their mothers were here. And there dead mother's mothers as well.

I didn't miss the ethereal bodies of the common ghosts strolling through the square, there bodies passing through the mortals like mist.

Some of the spirits laughed amongst each other, eyeing the living as if they were a wonderful spectacle. Others, had a sad, forlorn expression as they looked on.

I turned my eyes away, careful not to let anybody in the square see my attention on something that wasn't there. Conversation had hesitantly presumed among them and I took the opportunity to stop in front of the bread stand.

"One loaf please," I asked the flour covered old man, handing him a dull, dirty coin.

He looked me up and down, hesitating before taking the coin from me with a sneer. I held my tongue. Even if the vendors hated me, they wouldn't dare turn away business in this painful winter.

He turned away and hastily threw a loaf into a bag and threw it into my arms and whispered angrily at me. "Now get on, witch!"

I adjusted the bread underneath my arm, noticing the burnt outside of the loaf and only looked down at the old man, wondering why he would waste his last years of life talking down and being cruel to a young girl.

"You have a wonderful day, sir."

And I moved on, quickly grabbing what I needed from each stand while managing to partially tune out the glares and stares and whispers.

Partially, meaning I still turned a ear and listened to their gossip.

She's looking rather pale today, a sure sign of the devil inside her.

The white hair, any soulless creature would have such hair.

I touched a piece of the white hanging down around my shoulders and down my back. It truly was white. And perhaps that really did make me soulless.

I felt a tap on my shoulder as I handed a coin to a particularly nasty potato seller. I spun around, startled.

And Justine Carmine, in all her pink cheeked and dark haired glory, stood before me with her pretty pink winter dress spinning around her ankles.

Evil.
Evil.
Evil.

If I was inhibiting evil from the depths below, than Justine Carmine was Satan itself. She was many years older than me, but young enough to revel in her youthful beauty and presence.

"Hello, Maren. What are you doing here?"

I shifted in my boots, suddenly finding it hard to find my footing in the slick snow. But I steeled myself, straightening my shoulders and lifting my chin. She though I was the devil, she thought I was crazy. If anything, Justine was intimidated by me.

"Hello, Miss Carmine. Considering I'm here every weekend to get provisions for the week, I fail to see how your question involves me and my schedule."

She looked down at me, her manicured hands coming to rest on her slim waist. I didn't miss her cronies, another four ladies standing a few feet away, listening and watching. I knew their type, I knew Justine's type. They saw me as an opportunity to make themselves feel superior while their insecurities withered away at them.

"I only assumed that you had learned from last weekends events that we don't want you here. That you're not allowed here," she sung, her head cocky and her soft brown curls falling over her shoulder.

Last weekends events. The girls behind her giggling behind the back of their hands at the memory. Justine and her cronies had a nasty habit of humiliating me at every chance they got. Last week, it was tomatoes splattered against the back of my head and all over my pretty leather coat.

"Well, I had only assumed that you might have finally realized that you have absolutely no say over where I am or where I chose to be. Is that what you think, Justine? That you have a say? That you scare me at all?"

She only smiled cruelly, her teeth looking like white pearls against the snowy landscape. She looked me up and down.

"Be careful, there's a ghost behind you!"

Instinctively, I looked over my shoulder, my stomach dropping as I saw nothing there. I closed my eyes briefly as the girls laughed and my head came back slowly to face Justine.

"I saw it. Didn't you, Justine?"

She stopped laughing, her perfectly plucked eyebrow raising slightly, ever amused and ever condescending. "Saw what, exactly?"

"I saw the ghost of your father. He wanted me to tell you that he still wishes you were never born."

All amusement dropped from her face and her light blue eyes went ice cold. She sneered at me, her hand raising.

"Why, you little psycho bitch!"

I flinched as she flung her hand out, slapping my groceries out of my hands and sending them skidding against the icy, foot step hardened snow.

She leaned down, her red lips close to my face. "You know what? You can go burn in Hell with your parents."

My eyes narrowed and before I could control it, my fist connected with

She raised her hand again, presumably to hit me but a large individual stepped up to our little quarrel, making Justine's eyes to wide and her hand halt midair.

"Justine." The voice commanded, the voice raspy but deep enough that even Justine wouldn't dare question it.

"Lincoln." She breathed out, hastily lowering her hand and slapping a sultry smile against her lips.

I looked up at this new individual, surprised to find a pair of young, brown eyes staring back at me. I caught my breath, momentarily stupefied by this strangers face. He was handsome, in a rugged, mountain living way. His shoulders were broad and his hands calloused from some kind of hard work. And his eyes, were churning in a way that told me he was not an ordinary young man from Harlem.

"Lincoln, you're back from the front! It's a blessing from God to see you again!" Justine breathed out, her voice airy and pressed as if the words couldn't come out quick enough.

But the man didn't even turn an eye to her, instead, they oddly stayed glued to my eyes and then moving across my face as if they're words written across it and he found them fascinating.

"Are you okay, ma'am?" He asked me, his eyes finally pulling away and looking down at my scattered purchases and my bloodied knuckles.

I nodded slowly, bending down to pick up my groceries as a way to escape his intense, surveying eyes. To my never ending amazement, he bend down as well, gathering my items in his hands.

I stood, glancing at Justine who appeared absolutely livid. Her eyes weren't on me though, they were staring at Lincoln as he stood. Oh, I see now. This young man was a respectable soldier, a very handsome soldier at that. Justine would do anything to get her claws into this one.

"I'm Lincoln. I've never seen you before in the village. What's your name?"

He reached out, placing my purchases back in my arms. He looked down at me with a small, awaiting smile. I glanced away, finding that all the ghosts have disappeared as the night neared. They never stayed long enough to see the night.

I opened my mouth to respond but Justine was stepping in front of me, the smell of her perfume burning my nose as she strode by me.

"She's a damned witch! That what she is! What's the sudden interest?"

I debated walking away then, finally out of the man's entrancing gaze but something held me there, staring at Justine's coated back.

"A witch? Odd, she just seems like a girl to me. A girl you've degraded for what appears like no reason at all."

Justine scoffed, stepping back to look at me with a seething look.

"No reason at all? She talks about the dead, she lives in a dead families house. She stares at things that aren't there!"

This time, he blocked her off completely with a wave of a hand. Justine stuttered, her rant falls short and her eyes blowing open at the gesture.

He met my eyes again. "You're name?"

I looked to Justine once before lifting my chin and meeting his eyes fully. "Maren. Maren Marrow. Apparently, I'm a witch, shouldn't you be shaking in your boots and avoiding me at all costs?"

This response, seemed to surprise Lincoln, his full eyebrows raising and his lips quirking in a smile.

"If being different makes a witch, I suppose we'd both be burned at the stake. It's an honor to meet you Maren Marrow. May I walk you home?"

I felt panic rise. This confrontation, this odd man who has been kinder than anyone had ever and the only soul to look at me as if I had one at all. This would only make my life harder. Impossibly harder, judging by Justine's hateful glare.

"Actually, I like walking alone. But it was nice meeting you as well, Lincoln."

I turned on a heel, intent on rushing out of this damned square before I was crucified. But the sound of hard poundings of boots against snow caught my attention.

I pursued my lips as I found the same strange man walking alongside me, a smile pulling against his lips.

"You really are pushing your luck, you know. I wouldn't want anyone to think the devils inside you as well and we're conspiring together."

He only shrugged. "I've been told we all have a little evil inside of us. Although, for the hate you get, Maren Marrow, I haven't seen any in you yet."

I continued walking down the path, almost out of the square. I glanced at the crowds of people staring at Lincoln, at the two of us together.

"You've only just met me, I could be completely evil and I'm just good at hiding it," I answer, trying my best to scare him off.

But he only smiled wider. Should I pretend I'm being exorcised and start writhing around in the snow? Or perhaps yelling for the ghosts to go away would do the trick and he'd go running back to Justine.

"I have a good sense of character. I think, at the most, you're only a little weird but evil? Of course you're not evil. I've seen evil and your certainty not it."

My eyes snapped to his and I found that his were glinting with amusement. "Thank you! I'll add weirdo to my list of charming nicknames. Right alongside kooky and insane."

We made it to the edge of the square and I stopped, looking up at him patiently. He looked down at me briefly before laughing, a rich sound that send a wave of warmth through my cold body.

"Right, you like to walk alone."

I nodded. "Right. Goodbye, Lincoln."

I moved to walk away but his hand reached out and enclosed around my bicep, halting me. My eyes moved to the point of contact, focusing on the shock it sent through my body.

"I'm sure we'll see more of each other, Maren Marrow."

I only offered a small smile, for his sake of course, and pulled away from his grasp. He hesitantly let me go, his eyes searching for something in my face for the last few seconds before I turned away.

As I walked through the snow, back to my country house on the outskirts of Harlem, I found myself smiling, something that I haven't felt the urge to do in a very long time.