21st August, 1894 — At the edge of Padmore Park

The park was closed, and Barnaby had spent most of the last day observing the bodies as they were brought up, waiting and hoping for any signs of someone who had come back. Today, the flow of the deceased retrieval had slowed somewhat, so Barnaby was understandably bored. He had found a place to float in eyeline of the park gates, just out of nosiness, but he had turned his mind to more musical matters – perhaps a new ballad was in order. The Fall of Summer, he would title it maybe; or The Mouth of Darkness; or The Well of Hell?

He would workshop titles later. So he had summoned his ghostly lute, and was strumming strings and murmur-singing phrases here and there as he drifted idly up and down on the spot, until a small fellow – er, girl – caught his attention in the corner of his eye, and he lost his train of thought. “Good morrow – I knowst thee, is that not so?” The urchin looked familiar... oh, from the Drowning! Barnaby promptly regretted saying anything.

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Charley Goode

  

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There weren't any flower sales to make today, those were all dried up now. So were the chances at anything in the park itself. And that made customers less likely to buy for some reason, even at the store itself. Charley had been helping Mrs. Mann get all of the autumn colors out into shop windows around this time last year, but today she had the rare afternoon off.

And, as it turned out, even she didn't want to go to another store.

Drawn to the park somehow, the urchin skirted its edges. No way to get to the water now, no rocks to skip on the pond. The park was usually so colorful, and now it just looked sad to her. As if someone had painted the whole scene and forgotten to add people to it. It was eerily quiet without them, and it was putting Charley on edge.

When she heard the strains of even eerier music, Charley felt curious enough to wander in its direction. It would be just this day for some magical creature to set a trap to lure her in. Not that she couldn't see the entirety around her, there were hardly any people in the way after all. Hardly any to hear her scream either, and it made her giggle aloud to think of it.

She almost did when the ghost appeared before her, seemingly out of thin air. Charley should have seen him coming, but the sun was in her eyes. That had to be it. "Nah, I en't yer lass," she said quickly covering for any problems that might appear from other corners of the air today. The last thing she needed to be was some ghost's fingered culprit for an otherworldly trap.

And then, looking a bit closer, the urchin did recognize him after all. "Wait, no." Taking notice of the lute in his arms, and the strange cadence in his words, she tilted her head to the side with a thought. Choosing to play along, Charley tried to recall the lines of a long-ago play her Pa had written, changing them slightly for her own needs. "Yea, for I was with thee on that day of great wonder. Whence we did both spy a hero in pantaloons!"

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He paused mid-strum to assess her, and her patter. “Dost thou mock me?” Barnaby asked – not yet with any offence, merely a quizzical bent. She had sounded as foreign as any present Living a moment ago, and last they had met, full of odd vocabulary – and yet, for a moment here, she had sounded almost Of His Time. Barnaby peered more closely at her, in this newfound interest.

(At least she did not sound irritated about that past day: she seemed quite as unaffected and as amused as he. That was safe.)

“But, yes – I thought so,” Barnaby agreed, impressed at himself for recognising one Living from another. (Hogsmeade was quite overrun with Livings, these days.) “Are you a native of this place? I see you haunt it as often as I.” He chuckled at his own joke.

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The urchin giggled at the sight of an unsettled ghost. What could a ghost do if it was angered, really? She didn't see any living friends of his that could make her regret mocking him. Not that Charley would, and she shook her head and made it clear, "Nah."

When that satisfied the ghost, Charley let her face settle into a grin. It was an odd thing, to be standing around talking with a ghost. She expected ghosts would be, well, haunting people. Or places. His seemed to be at the lake, or so she thought. Here he was, as far away from the lakeshore as urchins and other living beings of Hogsmeade were meant to stay. Must be some special sort of thing drawing him from his haunt.

"I en't from here, if that's what ya mean," Charley said, a little bothered he thought she was one stuck in place. Her eyes narrowed a bit, squishing the freckles of her nose together. She tossed her head up toward the castle sitting invisible on the other side of the lake. "Not 'til I came for school. An' now I jes do what I gotta, like every other working lass."

She shrugged, like always. There wasn't much else to say, Charley didn't think a ghost would care where she worked or what meager lessons in magic she received in exchange. A dead thing had all the leisure time, and no stomach to keep them working in-between. It was enough to drive an urchin wild with envy, or enough for her to blurt out, "Don't ya got yer own haunt? What's a ghost do there, anyhow?"

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