The Rebirth

4 Years Later….

“I’m a fairy,” Elena had announced when Claudius arrived. He had a new friend with him. To this new friend, Elena took a break from her fairy story and said, “Hello.”
Claudius commented, “No, you’re not.”
Elena glared at him. “Yes! I am! Also ‘Ranza and Ella are. It’s a secret. So you can’t tell nobody.”
“Anybody, not nobody,” Claudius corrected. “And fairies don’t exist.” Claudius said this matter-of-factly, poking his head through the wall to check if her parents were in the hallway.
“Hello,” Claudius’ friend commented back.
A couple more ghosts trickled in, including Rufus. Elena turned to Rufus. “Claudius doesn’t believe in fairies.”
“Is that so?” Rufus asked absent mindedly, rummaging through his satchel. He pulled out a very sharp, very moonlight-blue, very glowing sword. “Now look at this.”
“But Mama doesn’t believe in you,” Elena stated stubbornly. It wasn’t the first time this has come up, why only Elena could see the dead. Claudius and Rufus never quite knew the answer. “And she’s wrong. So you’re wrong. I am a fairy.”
Claudius looked like he could go into detail, but Rufus stopped him by shrugging. “Okay.”
Elena was very disappointed in their lack of excitement. “I am,” she insisted again, but everybody simply smiled at her. She became very quiet, scowling only a little on her face but scowling a whole lot on the inside. She refused to comment on the ghosts’ new gossip from the dead forums.
The new friend ghost hovered next to Elena. He sat down next to her. It was only then that she noticed his ears were pointed and curved and very noticeable.
“Hello,” she repeated, making her voice very upset and whiny.
“Hello,” he also repeated. And then they were quiet for a while.
He said, “You are right.”
Elena looked at him. He was a ghost. A funny ghost. Most ghosts were funny- they were all so different than each other. He was different because of his ears, she decided, and he also had a very odd flavor to him. His voice was also weird. It was not similar to her Spanish voice, and it was not similar to Claudius’ regal Latin voice. (“Lat-in,” they told her at the age of four. “Your parents don’t speak it.” Which had been becoming an issue at the time; Elena could speak it as well as she could speak Spanish, and could not understand why her parents couldn’t.)
“I know,” she said, because of course she was right. And she didn’t know what else to say. Her mood brightened a little.
“I don’t think you are a fairy, though,” he mentioned, and Elena soured again.
“Yes,” she said, less sure of herself. “I am.”
He shrugged. “I don’t think your friends are either. If they were, they would not have told you that you are one. I’ve met real fairies.” And now realizing that her friends were probably lying to her, Elena relaxed. So she wasn’t left out from Esperanza and Ella. New ghost seemed to know what he was talking about.
“Really?” Elena asked. She imagined glistening rainbow wings. A very hot pink dress that poofed up at the waist in sparkles. A tiara in the hair. Somehow, she ended up asking, “What do they talk like?”
“Very heavy fairy accent,” he said with distaste. “With musical undertones. They are quite evil.”
Elena was shocked. “No,” she said, “Fairies are beautiful.”
“Yes,” he agreed again. “They are.”
"They are beautiful?" Elena asked skeptically. "Or they are evil?"
"Both. Or, neither, in some cases. Either way, you're right."
“Stop!” Elena got frustrated. “Stop…”
The right words she was looking for were “agreeing with me” or maybe “confusing me”, but she couldn’t grasp them in her fit of anger, being five years old. Instead, she lapsed into silence.
Somehow, ear ghost understood. “Stop telling you you are right?”
“Yes,” Elena said, after a pause, deciding to just go with that. She was still confused.
“But you are right.”
“Yes, but… you…. Say too much is right,” except that’s also not what Elena meant at all. She meant that some things that the ear ghost said contradicted what she believed, but if she was right, and he was right, who was right?
Again, the ghost understood. “Oh,” he said very wisely, “But even when things are wrong, things are right. When things are wrong in one place, they tend to be right in another. Coexistence. We are a perfect example.”
He pointed to the small group of ghosts wandering around in her room and got up to join them. It used to be larger, Elena remembered, when the ghost fights still went on in her room. She remembered very stout, grumpy, little ghosts with tattered clothes decorated with flowers. She remembered ones with dog heads or cat legs or fangs. She saw, right now, one ghost- a woman- that was standing in the corner of her room, amused but very reserved. She had on a dress that was draped around her head. She also wore many, many, many chunky necklaces around her neck and her wrists, and her skin was adorned with swirls and designs that continued down to her fingers.
Elena tried to remember what the ear ghost had said. She hadn’t even recognized half the words he said. Her brain began to hurt.
At that moment, Claudius got into a loud argument and started to throw ghost books. Elena, who had officially been bewildered and confused out of her anger, turned to Claudius in relief. By morning, she had laughed and danced with the ghosts until she fell asleep.
The news had dropped on her at breakfast.

Notes

:))))))))hellOGUYs