Blog #7 - Reflection

There hadn't been anyone there when the door to Mr. Evans's apartment had opened. It was fairly anticlimactic, leaving Marie disappointed. It had only been some draft that blew the door open. Whoever was in the apartment last must not have shut the door properly. And so Marie had sulked back to her apartment, knowing that her wish would never come true.

Marie's life (or lack thereof) had been so eventful the past few weeks that she had forgotten how utterly pointless the time was in her weird in between life and death state. She had a lead on Ether, of course. Her journey to the past had helped with that. But she had no one to explain it to, no one to help. She could not for the life of her find Mei anywhere and poor Starr was terrified of her. So it was back to her dark corner of the empty apartment, staring out the window, thinking about everything she could have been doing if she alive.

Without realizing it, the entire day had passed and Marie had come up with nothing to advance the case. The room was enveloped in darkness, the night sky clear and sprinkled with bright stars. Marie was back to her old ways; before the murder, the only time she left the apartment was at night. She didn't talk to anyone, wasn't nosy, and never went near a murder. Marie could not explain why she kept investigating, only that she felt this obligation to help him. So she played detective. She didn't know what else to do.

Marie floated up, the silky fabric of her dark grey dress swaying across her ankles. One glance out her window told her that it was deep enough into the night for the halls to be empty, which cued her nightly wanderings. Not that they were so much wanderings anymore, Marie only called them that to keep the guilt of entering Mr. Evans's apartment at bay.

She entered the pitch black apartment, guided only by the moonlight. Movement in the apartment caught Marie's eye, and she spun around only to stare at herself in the mirror. She gasped at her reflection, having not seen herself since she died. Marie had become sickeningly pale, her bright blue eyes had faded to gray, and she had a faint silver glow. She looked, well...

She looked like a ghost.

Blog #6 - History

In five years of staring out the cracked window, Marie had never seen this much fog. Instead of an array of warm colors during the sunrise, all she was met with was grey. She never went outside in the mornings, she hated watching everyone hurry to work. She envied them, and normally avoided the mornings. But, things at the Maitland had not been normal lately.

Marie flew past the morning bustle in the lobby, no one aware of her presence as she floated through the crowd. She reached the sidewalk, her eyes falling on the stack of newspapers next to the boy selling them. Marie quickly scanned over the front page, grasping what she could from only one page. She could not pick up a newspaper every morning and read it like she used to. She took a lot of things for granted in the past. 

Lost in her daze, Marie read the date as January 11th, 2013. Snapping out of it, she looked more closely at the newspaper, reading the article about Edgar Maitland's missing, presumed dead twin brother. With that, she was transported 6 years back. 

The sky seemed bluer when she was alive, the sun brighter. The cold hair nipped at her skin and the wind tossed her thin golden hair around as she rushed out the door to make it to her weekly breakfast at the cafe on Maine St. with Willow and Grace. They had been friends ever since Marie had moved into the Maitland two years prior, meeting through Marie's teaching job at the elementary school. She was never late, but she got held up by Suzy Kemp in the lobby, gossiping about Ether Maitland's disappearance. Marie really couldn't care less. She could not stand Suzy Kemp, and she hated being in other people's business. 

Marie slid into the booth next to Willow. 

"I'm so sorry, I ran into Suzy in the lobby," Marie apologized. 

"When will she get a clue? No one cares about her gossip," Grace said, rolling her eyes. 

"Exactly! All she is doing is creating rumors that most likely are far from the truth. Why can't she just mind her own business?" Willow added, and Marie completely agreed. 

Back in the present, Marie felt a pang of guilt when she remembered how nosy she had been lately. But that was soon forgotten when she realized she had another lead. 

Ether.