Helen had been dead for years now, but she never had been able to cross over. Some unfinished business they said, well what unfinished business could she have? She had been a lonely child of a couple of parents who soon had to abandon her because it was too expensive to raise a kid, despite them being too clumsy not to avoid having one in the first place. And after that one morning years before, when she had woken up all alone in their house, her life hadn't become any better. She even had to hide the fact she was living alone, because she was too scared to be brought to some sort of orphanage as she had been only sixteen at that time. 

Getting by for a kid her age had been incredibly hard too, so she had to work very tiring jobs to be able to eat something. Going to school, or even dreaming for a brighter future was out of the question. A girl that was born poor, was destined to only grow exactly like her mother did. To find a man somewhere and then just work every day till her body made it possible, and then going even beyond that. Working at such a young age not only had affected her body, giving her bad posture and back pain already at twenty; but it had also affected her mood completely, turning her into someone that rarely smiled. On top of it all more than once she risked being attacked by very annoying men, while she cleaned their houses, or when she worked at a bar. No one cared to protect such a filthy poor, and more than once she had ended up being accused of seducing said men to extort some money from them.

 Helen had led such a stressful life that one winter, as she was walking back home when she stumbled upon a rock and fell on the snow, she just decided to give up. She died at the age of only twenty-one, without even experiencing love or happiness in her life. She let it go and that night she simply fell asleep, embraced by the soft, but simply too cold, snow.

    Her death hadn't surely been any better though, she had woken up suddenly inside a coffin, in the scariest darkness, and freaking out badly she had jumped out of the grave and directly in between the branches of a  tree. She tried to scream but soon realized her voice had become weird. She then started to breathe in and out and finally looked around her, she was flying. The exact moment she realized that, she fell crashing on the ground, covering her face and trying once again to scream. Nothing made sense, she was so scared, but the fall from a couple of meters didn’t hurt her, no it didn’t hurt at all. She had moved away her hands and looking down she had noticed with horror that she was mostly transparent. She looked further down…she had no legs anymore, her body seemed to simply vanish a bit as it went past her long skirt. Oh my god, am I dead? Am I a ghost? She had thought and closing her eyes shut she had raised up her hands in fear they were going to be missing just like her legs. Uncertain if opening her eyes or not, she had lingered a bit and then finally opened them, discovering that her arms at least were there. Perfect she had her upper body but no legs... therefore she was floating. 

She had looked around, the graveyard looked sad, probably because she had been put in the area where only people with no name or family were. The gravestones were all crooked, some were even missing and replaced by pieces of random wood with some name on it. Close to no flowers were around. Sure, it was winter so it was very hard to keep them under the snowy season, but the truth was that almost no one paid visits to those poor souls. 

The sky was very dark even if it was probably still daytime, and if she could have felt anything physically, she would have probably felt cold. What a great day to be dead! 

And why the hell was she still there? Didn't she deserve eternal peace? Well, a funny thing, on her cross someone had carved the three letters "R.I.P., VERY FUNNY!" she had said closing her fists to then sit down right where her grave had been. She didn’t feel at all like she was resting in peace.

~

    Her days went on in such a boring way, she never dared to get too far from her grave, her only amusement were the birds that sang during the day and sat on the large tree that was right above her head. That tree had become her only comfort, it looked so big and so alive, the large oak kept surviving the seasons, despite the heavy rains and the wind, and the snow. It stood tall and protected the little creatures with its large branches. Birds and sometimes insects and tiny slithering creatures had been her only company, even if they didn’t know. One day she even saw people passing by, but of course, they didn't know of her presence so she felt even lonelier after seeing them.

    Yes, a very boring eternal existence she had, at least till the day she met Cory. Cory wasn't a regular ghost like the ones she thought she had seen from afar a few times, no, not at all, he was different somehow, and he was smiling. Usually, when she had got a glimpse of some ghost floating around they all looked very confused, always looking down with their shoulders all curled to the front. they all had been very pity ful. So it was just normal that seeing someone so different had caught her eye.

One night she had seen a shadow moving around in the area next to hers and not even realizing why she had hidden behind the large tree, peeking at the other one moving among tombs. She had blinked and in a second she lost him. "What the..."

"Looking for something Miss...?" she heard a voice right in her ear. She got so scared that she jumped up high to the last branch of the tree and looking down from there she saw a very amused young man with his arms crossed on his very fancy vest. "Did I scare you?" the blonde guy had then asked quickly floating to her. He was handsome, well apart from his very pale skin and slightly dark eye bags, he smiled at her and reached out his hand "I'm Cory, lord Cory Williams to be precise," he had said with a bit of mockery in his voice.

She had reached out her hand to grab his "Helen" she whispered and for the first time in her life, she had received a handshake. Her, from a man! A lord even. Rich people barely even looked in her direction let alone talk to her or respect her enough to touch her hand. 

Seeing her puzzled expression Cory had chuckled and quickly explained "In death, you realize that there is no difference between women and men, and I'm sure in future people will be more aware of it... maybe they'll even let women vote" he had said and right there and then Helen had decided that she liked that guy, he was interesting, and also the first ghost to ever speak to her instead of looking completely absorbed into being miserable and...well dead.

    They had spent many nights chatting about various things and quickly they had become friends, Cory didn't always come for her in that area of the cemetery, because he had said he used to go to many places and Helen never really asked much, she was just happy to be able to see him now and then and feel less lonely. 

After a while he had even convinced her to move from her spot and at least explore the graveyard with him, only later they had started to give each other appointments in front of one or another gravestone, sometimes they even played a game they had called guess the gravestone...well yes not very mature of them, but they were dead what else could they have done? That way they had a chance to meet every time in a different place and they even met some other ghosts occasionally.

    Yet they mostly met at their respective tombs, to chat about various things, as Cory had been very lucky during his life and being born in a rich family, he have had a chance to study a lot and be buried with few of his books. Helen loved to listen to his stories about populations that lived far away and magical creatures. She never knew what was history and what was fiction, she only knew it was lovely to absorb so much information while she never had a chance to do it during her life.

But being rich had been also Cory’s curse because it had been the cause of his death. One night while he was walking back home from a ball close to his mansion he had been attacked and killed during a robbery. He had told her this story with a smile on his face, yet admitted to be still very serene about it all. After all, if he was still there it must have meant something and he had decided not to let that be a "bad something". He was so wise, and Helen could only admire him.

So if they were supposed to meet at his gravestone that night, why wasn't Cory there yet? She had been waiting for nearly an hour so bored and getting more and more unhappy as time passed. She even heard weird sounds coming from her surroundings, but every time she looked around she hadn't seen anything. It was a cold night even tho she couldn't really feel it, she recognized it when the air was foggy and it started to get very hard to see further than a couple of meters. 

She was there alone feeling pretty lonely and more and more upset, when all of a sudden a snowflake fell on her nose. It hadn't snowed yet that year and usually, she had preferred to just rest in her coffin when that happened, because for some reason she felt cold to her bones when it snowed. Yes, she didn't have much of a bone left in her ectoplasm body, but you get what she meant right? It was a natural reflex to hide from snow.

That night, instead, she was outside and when she looked up at the sky seeing those tiny and very sparse snowflakes falling on top of her face she suddenly remembered all of the moments she had long hidden in her heart. He eyes quickly filled up with tears as she started to recall how cold she had felt, how tears had frozen in her eyes and desperation had taken over when she hadn't been able to move her limbs anymore. No wonder she had hated snow ever since... it made her feel dead and alone all over again, all the pity for herself coming back crashing on her almost making her fall down on the ground and even below that. Tears started streaming down her cheeks as she tried to clean her face from that snow that kept falling on her, never melting but feeling just cold on her skin. Why wasn’t the snow just getting through her? It was so light that even her body made of pure energy was able to be touched by it. Helen hated it, she hated it so much. She desperately curled up crying, covering her head and shaking it vigorously so as to make all those memories disappear.

    All of a sudden she felt a soft touch on her cheeks "I'm sorry..." she heard a whisper "I'm sorry this was a stupid joke I couldn't imagine you'd feel this sad" he had then added as he gently pulled her face upwards. Their eyes met and the only thing she was able to do was to sob soundly.

"Where have you been?" she asked, her voice broken, her lower lip quivering "You've left me waiting here in the snow... I thought you weren't coming... no one ever comes for me... and" but her crazy rambling was suddenly interrupted when Cory shortened the distance between their faces and kissed her. Her eyes opened wide for the surprise, to then flutter closed as she felt the warmth that gesture was making her feel. Something unexpected and new, a feeling she had never felt, something that felt like her heart was beating faster. Cory gently gathered her in his arms letting her hands rest on his chest, and the only thing she could do was sigh again.

"I'm so sorry" Cory whispered when their lips stopped touching but their foreheads met. She then opened he eyes shyly only to meet the emerald ones of the other. That night they were even more visible than usual "This was very inappropriate of me...to a lady I…" but he didn't have time to finish that Helen had connected their lips again. A soft and very embarrassed and awkward kiss, but it was that awkwardness that finally dissolved all the discomfort between them.

"Very inappropriate," she had then said looking down and placing both her hands on her rosy cheeks, weird feeling that one, it was as if they had been almost warm.

"Did you remember something bad?" he asked. She nodded still looking down, ah she was too embarrassed to look up. "It's horrible the first few times you recall that day, then you start coping with it... this is why I hate nights. I was killed ad night remember? I never want to be alone so I always look for someone" Cory said. She looked up and smiled a bittersweet smile, reaching out to caress his face and going down to his neck where the scar from his death was. He said he was serene, he said he was ok with it, but the fear of that night lingered forever in his heart.

"I'll be keeping you company" she whispered and the only thing he could do was to kiss her more and more.

"And you won't ever be alone when it snows," he said hugging her.

And sure he wasn't lying because she never had to feel alone ever again, not in her death at least.

They didn’t know if that was their unfinished business, what they knew was that now they didn’t care to look for it anymore. All of a sudden being a ghost didn’t seem as scary, now that they had each other.