Chapter 3: The Siblings

With every passing day, Asa kept feeling less and less like a person. He still had a body yes, and crumbs of his memories from the time he was outside, as well, but the feelings and emotions were slowly starting to get away from him, slithering out of his grasp.

Asa didn’t need to sleep. He couldn’t feel warm anymore and his body was permanently cold, as if his energy kept being drained by sources unknown to him. He didn’t need water or food.

However, his stomach seemed not to get the memo and, at times, it kept grumbling, interrupting Asa’s silent workday.

That’s why he liked to visit the Lee siblings from time to time.

The ground under Asa’s shoes was covered in a thick carpet of orange leaves, pine cones and moss, the smell of soil heavy in the air, the grass ready to take in a new seed.

No matter how lovely it sounded, for Asa, it was nothing exciting. Just another day, one of many, all of them the same. The routine would kill him if dying was even an option.

The trees next to Asa whispered, the branches dancing on the wind. Asa sneered at them. They were always prying, the trees in here, always hungry and curious.

After spotting a red-eyed rabbit that escaped as soon as Asa’s eyes had landed on it, Asa got to the shabby pub and pushed the door open, inviting himself in.

A remarkable warmth wrapped around him, getting the blood rushing through his veins again, the feeling back in the tips of his fingers. Asa missed being warm.

The pub was the only other place except for the shop that wasn’t just an empty shell, abandoned and dead, put in the forest to make it look normal. Every other building scattered in there was a fake meant to convince the customers that the place was completely ordinary, just secluded, but not haunted, because it had both an open shop and a working pub.

“You again?” Wendy rolled her eyes, leaving the cloth she had been using to wipe the counter. “What do you want?”

“To be friends,” Asa gushed, sliding on one of the barstools. “I missed you.”

“You didn’t.”

“Ah, you are right. Can I get some soup?”

Asa and Wendy had a relationship that was somewhat complicated but not exactly hostile. Wendy thought that Asa was a walking bad luck charm, the cause of her dishes burning or plates getting broken, while Asa simply didn’t like it when someone didn’t like him.

Even though he could understand it, really. People rarely did like him, even when he was alive.

Or was he still alive, somewhat? He couldn’t tell.

Wendy shrugged. “Depends. What will I get in return?”

They had no real use for money, so they traded. One useful thing for another useful thing. A dish for one of the golden candles, a cup of awful coffee for a necklace.

“How’s your attic?” Asa asked. “I can help with that.”

Wendy tapped her fingers on the counter, the melody anxious. In the end, she sighed, fixed her long, black hair in a ponytail and disappeared into the kitchen behind the wall.

Once in a while, Asa had to visit the attic of the pub and politely send a ghost away. Every time it was a different ghosts, a soul lost on the way, young or old – it didn’t matter. And he wasn’t doing it because Wendy was afraid of ghost, no, he was doing it because she was afraid of one particular ghost straying and appearing here one day.

Her wife must have been long dead and Wendy dreaded the confirmation.

The kitchen doors screeched horribly when Wendy came out, a bowl of soup in her hands. She placed it in front of Asa along with a spoon chipped at the edges. The bowl had a fox painted on the side.

“Is Harvey here?” Asa asked, swallowing the first spoonful. At last, some hot soup for his tortured soul.

“He went out,” Wendy murmured.

It had taken some time for Asa to realise that the forest wasn’t a normal place but a time bubble. At first, he was too fascinated with surviving and getting a place to live, with learning magic from heavy books, to notice that something was off. But then, as he kept wandering the forest, it seemed endless, with no way out, and after some time Asa would always wind up back at the shop. Round and round the carousel goes.

Harvey was the one who had broken the news to him. One day, Asa had mentioned how his birthday was getting nearer and then, finally, Harvey had turned to him, his eyes sad, and confirmed his fears.

In the forest, they kept repeating the same month, again and again. Never changing, never ageing. They kept living in October.

Asa’s birthday never came.

Harvey was the only one with the privilege to leave the forest. Once or twice a month, if they ran out of things, the witch would grant him the ability to leave, like the customers did, but without forgetting, and when he came back, he would tell them the tales from the outside world that were too odd to be real.

“Are you done?” Wendy asked.

Asa realised that he’s been staring at an empty bowl for a while now. There was a crack going through the bottom. Wasn’t there supposed to be a fox painted on the side?

“I could curse you,” he muttered suddenly. “Aren’t you scared of being mean to me?”

Wendy leaned in, her dark eyes drilling into him. “What curse would be worse than existing like this?”

And she was right. Asa forced a smile and then got up, leaving the pub.

They were all cursed to stay in exchange for staying alive. Asa could still remember how dying felt like, but he didn’t like to think about it too often, the memory forcefully held underwater, barring it from emerging ever again.

When it came to the siblings, they had sworn that they couldn’t remember, it had happened too long ago, but Asa knew they were lying. He knew when Harvey was lying. And so, they simply never shared the reason for catching the curse of being alive but stuck for eternity.

At times, Asa pondered if death would have been a better choice.

All he could do was try to run, again and again.