Chapter 15

15

MINA

The Present

"So, uh, what do you want to do for the rest of the day?" I asked, after I'd dried my hair off with a towel and come out to my living room. I didn't see Sylas anywhere—I imagined him floating off to go play Peeping Tom on other apartment residents.

But he appeared instantly in front of me, faster than a blink, making me yelp and jump back on instinct.

He chuckled and grinned. "Live," he said, then corrected himself. "By which I mean eat."

I had visions of myself going to an ice cream parlor and knocking fresh cones out of little kids hands...and it wasn't entirely a bad idea. I grabbed my wallet and my keys. "Let's go see what we can find," I said, heading for the door, with Sylas floating out beside me.

He paused at the car, but I walked past it. "Where are we going?"

"It's my turn to be mysterious," I told him, and he managed to wait patiently until we were half a block away, and the sound of the upcoming playground became clear.

"Really?" he asked, sounding arch, as I sat down on a bench, patting the space beside me for him.

To my surprise he did take it, settling down, resting the ankle of one ghostly foot on the knee of the other, while he steepled his hands. There were fifteen or so different pre-school aged children playing, running around, climbing on the small structures, or industriously digging in the sandbox with plastic shovels that they'd brought.

"Their sorrows are very tiny," he complained.

"But their feelings are pretty vast," I countered, giving him a look. "I mean, no one's more unhappy than a toddler denied."

"This seems like you're not taking me very seriously." He coalesced more tightly in his displeasure, like my affront was compressing him, turning him into the center of an angry star.

"Oh believe me, I am, I just don't have too many other options. Although there's a dog park down the street—sometimes owners there get into fights when they bite each other."

One of the mothers nearest me who was rocking a baby too young to play in its stroller gave us a nervous look, and after taking us in, me in particular, which I found odd—maybe because I had wet hair outside in October?—got up and pushed her stroller away, clucking to her other child to follow.

That was when I realized what'd happened. I whirled on Sylas. "No one else can see you, can they?" I asked, indignantly. "So right now I just look crazy."

He held up innocent hands. "Your words, not mine. "

I crossed my arms and sank back into the bench, determined to keep my lips still and use shitty ventriloquism to continue our conversation. "What about later tonight? When I need you?"

"I can be seen—and heard—when I desire it. Believe me."

I did. And I guess that made sense. Otherwise people would've definitely noticed the black-smoke-man following around the Hourglass Killer's other victims.

Right now he was surveying the playground coolly. "Did you ever want one?" he asked.

And now he was making an attempt to feed off of me, I was sure, seeing as we both knew there were no children in my future.

"I don't know," I said, through stiff lips. "Did you ever have one?" I countered, squinting at him, wondering if he'd answer me truthfully.

This, he seemed to consider. I watched his smokey chest rise and fall, and then he said, "If I did, I don't remember."

"What?" I asked aloud, at full volume, earning me the ire of another playground mom. "How could you forget your own child?" I went back to whispering.

"It wasn't intentional," he said, tilting his head thoughtfully. "I don't think." I continued to give him the stink-eye as he went on. "I mean, he—or she—could've been an asshole."

I bit back a horrible laugh, not sure if he was being funny on purpose, with his dry sense of humor, or just funny-sad.

"But really, Mina, there's no point in me keeping track of anyone, being what I am," he said, diffusing outward. I watched little wisps of him reach out to stroke through the hair of the nearest children like a breeze, and knew that, despite his earlier protests, he was feeding off of them, ever so slightly, grabbing the reasons that they fought and squealed and drawing those brief moments back into his...soul?

Or whatever it was that kept him like this, here.

"Compared to me, everyone is temporary. Everyone dies. What does it matter if it happened yesterday, or today, or tomorrow?"

"And yet you yourself said you wanted to live earlier."

"Being out of the hourglass is living, for me, such as it is."

"Have you always been inside of it?" I asked, after biting the inside of my lip. It was possible he had, and that no one had put two and two together, because the rest of his crimes were before photography. I had my doubts though. "The way you talk, it sounds like you predate glass."

That made him snort, apparently loud enough for other playground mothers to hear, although they reserved their squint-eyed glares for me. Then I watched his smoke wend its way towards them instead, harvesting the Stranger Danger they felt towards me to his own ends.

"I am not that old," he said.

I stood up and whispered. "Okay, okay, enough."

"No such thing."

"Let's go," I said more loudly, like I was one of the mothers myself, chiding a child, and that made him laugh—a laugh just between the two of us—but he did finally follow.