Theme: a lonely boy meets a ghost and makes a friend.

Cast:
Dream Castor
and
Penella Goldeater

Characters:
Mia (the ghost)
Mathias (the boy)

More character info to come .

---------- Post added 08-14-2014 at 07:11 PM ----------

Mathias closed his door as quietly as possible after sneaking away from a fight in the dining room. His parents were at it again. It wasn't likely they would stop screaming at each other and turn their attention to him ...but Matty just didn't want to risk it.

His parents had always fought. He wondered sometimes how they had ever fallen in love if all they did was argue. He supposed it couldn't have always been like it was. Like this. Maybe they were happy once. Long before they had him, he guessed, because all he could remember in eleven years was them fighting.

The sound of a glass smashing against the wall, made him flinch. He was two rooms away but if they were already throwing stuff he was in for a long night. He checked the little clock on his nightstand. It was only six-thirty pm. He flopped onto his bed and sighed. He was in for a long, long night.

Mia watched invisible from the corner as the couple fought. They did this regularly it seemed. Earlier she saw a boy sneak away, and considered following him, but was too scared of him seeing her. She "lived" here for quite a while, and always wanted to meet him, to be his friend, but just as in life, she was too afraid of others, of the unknown. The spirit jumped, yanked from her thoughts as the man through a glass cup at the wall in rage. They kept fighting, and Mia decided now would be a good time to retreat to her room.

She disappeared to the attic, where a red bird was sitting on an old bed. She sat next to it, sighing. "Oli, why are people so scary?" she asked in a quiet voice, petting the bird. She smiled, comforted by the chirp of her only friend. Humming, she continued to play with the bird.

Mathias flipped through an old comic book. He'd read this one a lot. It was about a boy, not much older than he was, who had been sucked into a fantasy land. The boy was brave and very clever and made his way in this new world. Matty wasn't so sure he would do very well in those same circumstances but the comic was an escape. It was anywhere but here.

Too soon, he finished with the comic. His parents were still fighting but the sound was muffled now. He checked the clock and it was nearly seven. That made sense, then, because their favorite television program came on at seven. So the fight had spilled down out of the dining room, into the hall and finally into the living room. It worked out pretty great for Matty, since the living room was on the other side of the house.

Mathias rolled off his bed and sat on the floor next to his backpack. He didn't have a lot of homework tonight, it was early in the school year, but he wanted to finish what he did have quickly. The dull sounds of the television and his parents raised voices during commercials were not conductive to the boy's studying.

He sighed. This chapter was boring, the worksheet was stupid and his parents were driving him crazy! He threw his pencil between the pages of his history textbook and closed it. The worksheet lay unfinished on the floor.

Mia was getting bored, Oliver had fallen asleep, and now she was alone yet again. She hated being alone. She decided she would see what the boy was doing. She made sure she couldn't be seen before making her way to his room.

He was reading a comic book, the same one she always saw him reading. She was sure it wasn't that long, and yet he still read it. She didn't understand rereading a book, it never crossed her mind as a possibility. He suddenly got up, done with the comic, and started pulling books and paper out of a backpack. Curious, Mia dared to step closer to better see what was going on. She tried reading the paper, but the words and questions made no sense to her.

The boy let out a frustrated sounding sigh, startling Mia. He closed the book, leaving everything on the floor. Mia eventually went back to trying to understand the strange paper.

Matty stood up and stretched. He was tall for his age. If he stood on the bed he could lay his hand flat against the ceiling. But he didn't do that just now. He wasn't doing anything, he couldn't bear the thought of his textbook and he could only see his friends on the weekends. They knew not to try calling, it would just rope Mathias into his parent's fighting.

So Mathias was alone most of the time. Avoiding his parents and his homework. Problem was there wasn't muc to do. He lookked around his room. There were a lot more clothes outside the dresser than in it but the floor was clean. His mom was picky about that but he was still a kid. So stuff got sort of strewn about. He had a rock collection spread across his windowsill and an abandoned ant farm on his nightstand. He wasn't sure what had happened to the ants and he had junk food tucked into all sorts of places in his room. He thought the ants would have turned up by now unless they escaped the house. In which case, lucky them.

He was feeling gloomy. He had been standing around for several minutes, just pouting. Mathias tried to shake it off. Literally. He shook out his arms and tried to release the tension. It didn't really work. It just served to make him feel restless. He paced the room a moment and then sank backk onto the edge of his bed. He sat there a good long while and wondered what everyone else was doing.




((Matty solves mysteries on the weekends. We talked about how I was exploring a character's backstory: Mathias is part of Crystal Cove Mysteries. I won't mention the others often, because this is our play but timeline wise he would have known them))

Mia watched curiously as the boy paced around his room. He seemed bored and lonely, and Mia wanted to reach out to him, but she couldn't bring herself to do so. She watched him for a bit before deciding to investigate the room. She had only been in here a few times, and had never gotten a good look around.

As she looked, she got lost in her curiosity, forgetting that she wasn't alone. She picked up a book, but then remembered the boy in the room, she tried to put it back, but it was too late, she dropped it. She froze, staring at the boy, hoping he didn't see. She should have left, but her legs wouldn't move, she could only stare and hope she doesn't accidentally become visible.

Mathias didn't see the book float up but he heard it drop. He jumped to his feet and stared at it. It just lay there, looking innocent. Or rather, it just lay there, looking like a book. A book that had NOT been on the floor a second ago. Matty reached a trembling hand out to the book and stopped just short of actually picking it up.

He looked around and thought there was no harm in asking, "Is someone here?" he picked up the book and set it on his bed "It's okay. Really. It's just... I mean, I just gotta keep my floor clean."

He left the book set on the bed. And quickly scooped his history book and homework off the floor and back into his backpack. He slung the bag onto the back of a wood chair. Then turned back to the bed and looked at the book.

It was book of birds. Bird watching hadn't been a dominate hobby in Matty's life - but - he liked to know the names of different things. He looked around the room again, feeling sort of like someone was there. It was nice. A quiet energy, almost like the room was holding it's breath to see what he did next. He reached over and pulled open the cover. Leaving the book open on the bed. Every few minutes he would turn a page. When he started to feel a bit silly, saying nothing, he started to read the pages out loud. Occasionally, he would say things like "Isn't that interesting? when he came across a fact such as this species is largely nocturnal and only flies at night. During the day it rests in tall grasses.

He hoped he wasn't boring the.. spirit? Mathias was pretty sure a ghost or something had moved the book. Anyway he hoped he wasn't boring it to... death. Okay, so this was sort of creepy. Matty could admit that much to himself but it was also really, really cool. Unless it wasn't happening. Maybe he was cracking up. Maybe his parents really had driven him crazy and now he was making up ghost friends to occupy himself until the weekend. He turned another page and spied a crimson colored songbird. It was pretty and sort of familiar for some reason.

"Hmm. He mumbled "I like that one."

Mia watched frozen in fear as the boy picked up the book. He asked if anyone was in the room with him, but was met with silence, she wasn't sure if she wanted to reveal herself. He started to flip through the book, reading it out loud for Mia, apparently. She smiled, he was nice, he didn't ignore her, and she liked that. She liked him. She sat for a while, listening to him read. She couldn't read, at least not well, and no one had ever read to her.

She walked up to him, suddenly feeling brave. She was right next to him, probably too close for comfort, but she didn't know this. She looked at the page about a red bird, the picture looking familiar. Feeling particularly comfortable, she became visible. "Hmm. I like that one" she heard him mumble. "That looks like Oli!" she exclaimed in a rather quiet voice, pointing to the picture and smiling at him excitedly. She sounded like she hasn't spoken much in a very long time.

A thin, ephemeral arm pointed at the page. Mathias steeled himself and looked up the arm - and into the face of a girl. She was a bit younger than he was and kind of see through "L-looks like... who?" he sounded scared. He didn't want to. She had been smiling at him. He tried to arrange his face in a similar expression, then took a deep breath and tried again. "Oli, is that your bird's name? Do you have a bird?"

Something tugged at his memory. "I've seen a bird like this in our yard." He smiled sincerely now. "That might even be why I got the book. It was such a pretty bird and I'd never seen one quite like it." Mathias felt like maybe he was talking too much now. He didn't want to overwhelm the girl or pester her with his questions. He turned back to the book and traced the swoop of wing in the picture of the red songbird.

Mia watched him trace the wing on the pictured bird. "His full name's Oliver! He's very pretty! He's my best friend!" She sounded pretty happy. "He likes to play outside, but I don't know why. He's really brave for going outside." She looked a bit concerned, maybe even a little scared.

"I like birds, do you? Oli sings really pretty! He likes to sing for me! It makes me feel not so lonely." She kept rambling on excitedly about birds and Oliver. Her manner of speech was rather simple, showing a small education. She kept talking for a few minutes before coming to a sudden stop. She looked down, her shyness coming back. "I'm sorry. I got too happy... I didn't mean to annoy you. I'm sorry." She sounded like she was about to cry.

A whirlwind of emotions had burst out from the ghost girl. Mathias could hardly keep up with the torrent of words and phrases. She had seemed so happy and he's been smiling back at her when, like a switch, her shyness had flipped back on. Matty scrambled "You're not annoying me! I was worried I'd been talking too much is all." He laughed a little because, it was funny, how neither of them wanted to bug the other.

"I'm Mathias." he pushed his overgrown hair away from his face and held it back with one hand. "Call me Matty. And your bird's name is Oliver? Oli? I'd like to meet him sometime." He let his hair fall into his face again, suddenly feeling shy himself. He peeked out from beneath those strands, asking at last: "What's your name?"

Mia looked up at the boy, now known to her as "Mathias". "Mia" She whispered, back to her usual self. She looked back down to her feet, unsure of what to say. She was a bit frustrated with herself, though. She wanted to talk to him, she wanted to hold on to the one person to listen to her words. She was tired of being lonely, and here she had this brave boy, unafraid of the outside, and willing to talk and listen, yet she was standing here staring at the ground.

She started playing with the edge of her nightgown, paying no mind to the dark stains on the front, as if she didn't even know they were there. "I can introduce you if you want..." she hesitantly offered, unsure if she was comfortable with him in "her room".

She gave her name in a whisper but it didn't chill him. He supposed he should be, maybe, scared or something. She was a ghost - but Mia radiated kindness. What was frightening, was the blood on her night gown. He was sure it was blood. Had to be blood. Speckled and spattered down her front.

Mathias caught himself staring but Mia might not have noticed with her head down like that. He was glad, if she hadn't noticed because she seemed so timid and fragile. He didn't want to scare her away. And how strange was that? He didn't want to scare the ghost!

She had offered to introduce him to her songbird. "I'd love to meet Oli" Mathias replied, with real feeling.

Mathias looked out the window. It was almost full dark now. The sun had dipped below the horizon while they'd been chatting. "It's pretty dark. Does he nest outside?" Somehow, Matty didn't think so. In his fuzzy memories of seeing a crimson songbird swooping about in the yard, Matty could recall watching it flit up into the eaves of the house. He wondered if maybe Mia and Oliver stayed in the attic but he never heard or felt or sensed anything up there. Oliver's bird-song had never wafted down the ladder-steps.

Of course it was hard to hear much of anything over his parents fighting.

Mia brightened upon hearing him say such nice things about her precious bird. "Nu-uh, we live in the upstairs room!" she told him cheerfully. She grabbed his hand, and weakly tried to pull him towards the door.

Eventually getting him to follow her, they went up into the cluttered attic. She lead him to an old bed, where a red bird was sitting on the frame. "This is my room! Oli and I stay here mostly, but he's brave and goes outside! I think he's crazy for that! I'm brave for gong downstairs, but I'm too scared to go outside. I worry about Oli when he leaves. You said you saw him, is he happy outside? Is he safe?" She began rambling excitedly, her voice becoming more concerned near the end.

Mia's light grasp on his hand wasn't as cold as movies had told him. Her touch was feather light even in trying to pull him and felt more like static electricity than ice. The upstairs room was, of course, the attic and Matty had been up here a few times before but never noticed the old bed behind a stack of boxes.

The bright red songbird was perched on the frame. A bright spot in the dusty attic.

"Don't worry. He can fly." Matty smiled at Mia "I'm sure he's safe and it helps with the being brave, being able to flit away if something came." Matty turned back to the bird, "Hello Oliver." the boy said in a softer voice. The bird didn't seem to sure about this stranger kicking up dust in the attic. "I'm Mathias and Mia offered to introduce us. I live downstairs."

Mia noticed Oliver's hesitation, and smiled at the bird. "It's ok Oli! This is Matty, He's my new friend! He talks to me!" She talked to the bird as if it was human. Oliver didn't respond to her encouragement. Mia looked at Mathias, "I'm sorry. He's shy to strangers. He must be scared."

She walked behind some boxes, coming back holding a small box. "This'll cheer him up! We like the pretty music!" She opened the music box and wound it up. A small melody filled the room as she set it down on the bed. Oliver seemed to relax, and let Mathias pet him.

The tinkle twang of the music box filled the attic.

There was something familiar about the tune. Mathias ran the back of a finger along Oli's neck, now that the bird had calmed down, and thought about it. The song reminded him of quiet nights where his parents had stopped speaking to one another. Those nights were always the worst. He was used to the screaming but that icy silence always made him feel so hollow and alone.

Finally he asked Mia, "Do you play the music box a lot?" He smiled and hummed along a little "Because I think I know this song! It makes me feel better..." Matty's smile faltered "when I'm... sad." Something had occurred to him then - "Do you, ah, watch our family? I know they fight a lot. It's not. It's fine. I mean, it's not fine." He had started pacing in the small space between the boxes, the wall, and her bed. He was rambling and over-explaining something she hadn't even asked about but he couldn't believe he hadn't realized she must see his family at their very worst.

Mia started to worry. 'Did I do something wrong?' she thought as she watched him pace. "Do your mommy and daddy hate each other? They fight a lot. My mommy and daddy hated each other too. I used to watch 'em fight. I think they forgot me though." the ghost girl interrupted his rambling. If he was going to answer, he didn't get to, because just then they heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Mia panicked and disappeared.


((Sorry for late response! I've been busy with school))