• Standing by the bus stop, Allen had his hood up, earphones in and music blasting. Partial deafness was always the easiest way to forget things, he found, but he was shocked into reality when someone's hand grabbed his arm.
    "Holy--" he began, yanking the earphones out. Next to him stood a ginger-haired girl with what looked like carrots hanging from her ears and an almost drunk grin on her face. Allen sighed.
    "Maggie, you are the only person in both this world and the next that can make me jump like that."
    "I'm proud," she replied, looking genuinely proud. Allen unconsciously made sure that the lighter he carried was firmly in his hand and buried in his pocket; she was a clinically insane pyromaniac.
    "You not going to his funeral?" she asked him.
    "No. You know why."
    "Cemetery Ghosts..."
    Maggie could also see spirits, but, unlike Allen, she had not gained the ability through a near-death experience in her childhood. She was a witch by birth and blood, and had trained herself to see them clearly. The spirits that hung around graveyards were... clingy. They followed people around. If you didn't know that they were there then it was okay, but when you did it was very disturbing to see a transparent semi-decomposed person next to you.
    Allen couldn't help but smile as Maggie continued to speak. Something about watermelon shoes, she was saying, but he didn't really listen. It was hard not to smile around her. After a few minutes, he realized that she had stopped talking. Her head was tilted downwards and her hair covered her eye.
    "Allen?" she said, "...I miss him."
    His eyes darkened slightly, locking something away inside.
    "I know. So do I."
    Out of their sight, an unusual child watched them. She was around ten years old, with short cropped blond hair and a classic pointed witches hat on her head. She wore a short cloak and what looked like some kind of knee length robe over a simple pair of dark jeans.
    She smiled, and her animal yellow eyes opened. Something was about to happen.