Should I be scared by the roaming spirits glittering outside of my window as they head it from the village square back into the forest?

Yes. Hell yes, I should be.

Am I?

No.

In fact, it's somewhat comforting. I pulled a chair to the window and watched the ghost as they moved into the forest by my house. Somehow, they all traveled to and from the forest often enough that there was a constant stream of them.

I watched as a child ghost, short legged and chubby cheeked, clung to the hand of another who looked dutifully on to the forest, as if it were calling.

I jumped slightly when I felt something jump onto my lap, a furry something. I squealed, excited.

"Hello, Ju Ju!"

Ju Ju was my only friend in the entire world. Th cutest black cat you'll ever see.

She pawed at the strings of my dress, her tiny paws soft and harmless as they hit my chest. I stroked her, watching the wave of ghosts.

I like to think Ju Ju and I are knitted from the same cloth. We both were alone and scared when we found each other. I had been running from the first ghosts I had ever seen when she ran across my path, nothing more than a forgotten feral.

Oddly, something in her green eyes made me pause, and I couldn't leave her.

We have been inseparable ever since, keeping each other company when nobody else would dare.

"You're a good kitty cat, aren't you?"

She purred, rubbing her soft fur against me. I jumped when a ghost came particularly close to my window and I quickly adverted my eyes to they wouldn't notice I could see them.

I turned my eyes down to Ju Ju but her attention was on something else entirely. My eyes widened as her wise green eyes followed the ghostly figure as they passed.

Ju Ju hissed, her eyes following the ghost until they hit the forest line, before she went back to nuzzling in my lap.

I eyed her, my hand coming up to grab her face and look in her face. I stared at her, looking for something in those eyes and she looked right back at me.

"You can see them, Ju Ju?"

She only pulled her head away with a frustrated hiss and went back to playing with my strings.

How odd. Perhaps we really were quite similar.

~

The day passed in a flurry of boredom and relentless silence. But then again, that's how most of my days went.

I made it a point never to leave the house unless absolutely necessary. Which meant, once a week to go the square and get my necessities from the shops.

So when I heard a knocking at the door, I figured it must be the grim reaper himself coming to reap my soul. Either that, or the villagers were outside with pitchforks and torches.

I crept forward, looking at myself in a hall mirror. I cursed. My nearly white hair was unruly and my dress my crooked and my face was too pale from no sun.

Hastily adjusting myself on the way to the door, I felt another fear grip me. It was the men who killed my parents and they were back to finish their job, to tie the loose end that they have overlooked.

"Maren? I know you're there, I see your shadow under the door sill."

All prior panic rushed out of my head and all the blood rushed to my cheeks instead. Oh no, it couldn't possibly be him.

I hesitantly opened to the door and felt my breath leave me. No. No. NO. I can't be.

Lincoln, in some kind of casual uniform of a soldier on leave, was grinning up at me from my porch, his white teeth gleaming.

Brown eyes.
          Brown eyes.
                   Brown eyes.

"Oh no."

His smile dropped and he looked almost embarrassed. "Oh no? I mean, I could have been worse, you could have said 'ew'."

I looked down and saw Lincoln was carrying a pretty bouquet of wild flowers, all in varying shades of blues and reds and oranges and yellows. How hard it must have been to find flowers in this terribly cold winter.

"Oh no," I repeated, in some state of shock at this sudden appearance.

He smiled bashfully, looking around at the front of the house before his eyes returned to me. "Pretty nice house, it's a shame you have to stay here all alone. Did you live here as a child?"

My eyes widened. Was he trying to make small conversation. What a turn this has taken. I stepped forward, suddenly coming to my wits.

"Lincoln, what possible reason do you have for being here right now? At my house? On my porch?"

He grinned, his shoulders rising in a shrug. "I wanted to see you. And to ask you to come to breakfast with me."

"Breakfast?" I seethed.

"Are you insane? That little stunt you pulled in the square was one thing, but this? Breakfast? Oh my god, it anyone sees you here, they'll burn me at the damned stake."

He patiently waited for my rant to finish, paused to make sure I was done and then opened his mouth to respond.

"Is it a crime to ask a pretty girl to breakfast? You make it sound like a crime."

I scoffed, my hand coming up to grip the bottom of my hair and pulling at it slightly. Lincolns eyes followed the movement with an amused glint in his eyes.

"Living, for me, is a crime. If you knew what these people would do to me if they knew you were here, if you knew how they'll treat me!"

He seemed taken aback by my outburst, his eyes losing any amusement and turning from melted chocolate to dark brown stone. He stepped forward, his eyes softening.

"They treat you that badly?"

I closed my eyes briefly, sucking in a deep breath. "If I wanted your pity, I would have asked for it. Just leave me alone."

I reached to close the door, the wood creaking as it closed but it halted, caught in Lincoln's large arm and being pulled back open.

"Tell me. Tell me what they do. What they've done."

I scoffed again. "There's nothing you can do about it. If people chose to be hateful then let them! Theres no point in trying to change their minds, not when they'll always be that way! Might as well try beating a dead horse."

He pulled open the door further. "I don't have any interest in interacting with any of those people. Why do you think I left for the war so long ago? I don't have any interest in them but I do have an interest in you."

I felt the breath leave my lungs. For a brief second, everything was forgotten. All the horrible villagers. This cursed house. The ghosts. And for a second, it was just me and a young man freshly back from war, asking me to breakfast.

"And if you think I care about rumors about ghosts and haunted houses and witches, then it's really important that I spend time with you so you can see who I really am."

This, made me pause. "You have no idea who you're dealing with. I am not the type of girl who gets to eat breakfast and talk about my day and smile as if nothing's happening. Why don't you understand that?"

He stilled, his eyes flashing as he stared down at me. "You don't actually see ghosts, do you? That is just a rumor, isn't it?"

This made me go cold all over and I felt any warmness at Lincoln's presence leave me. He only was interested because he thought none of it was true, he though I was just an misunderstood outcasted girl. But what he didn't know, was that all the villagers were right.

I sighed. "It's better for both of us if you just forget about me and leave me alone."

And I closed the door, pressing my ear to the door with a sigh. I stood their listening for what seemed like hours, until after an eternity, I heard the scuffle of boots as he left.

As the footsteps got quieter, as he neared the village, I couldn't help the sudden painful wrench in my chest.

That night, I cried into the darkness of sleep with the thought of determined brown eyes and the touching of toes under table as we ate breakfast still fresh on my mind.