The first few days were the hardest. Sleeping in the room next to Louk’s, rarely seeing him any time other than meals and for the concoction. Graden’s mind itched, his body was always the wrong temperature, and he kept fantasizing about finding the laboratory and taking all the magic crystals the doctor kept there. He ached, he hungered, and so when he first saw the ghost, he thought it was just another symptom.
“Go the f**k away,” he told the hazy person. It was the middle of the night and he was stuck unable to sleep. Again. Days after he took the doctor up on his offer and even a ghost didn’t snap Graden out of his misery.
She was beautiful, he supposed, for someone who had to be dead and who knew how long. She had a sort of green, sickly glow about her, which made it difficult to tel
