Re: [B&B: Nish & Atticus & Aiden, entrance]
Atticus meant remembering the event, not necessarily the date. Atticus' speech, like the rest of him, was lazy. Was easy to misconstrue. As a child, his parents hadn't spent much time working with him on anything that wasn't a group endeavor with the neighborhood children. Had developed the lazy speech as a way to be noticed; hadn't worked. Now, it was a habit, and he was an old dog and the use of nouns was an old-new trick. "Aiden." Repeated the name with a nod of his head. Greeting in shorthand.
Chuckled at the notion of a ghost collection. "Not by choice. They've been around since I was a kid. Am a battery of some sort," he explained. "Watch." He reached an arm out to the little girl, and he nodded. They didn't swarm him anymore, not now that he could control this phenomenon. The little girl touched him, which wasn't strictly a requirement. But, she was small and young, and she always did it this way. Her hand in his, the little girl then climbed on the bed and jumped. Maybe it was in poor taste, jumping on the bed a dead woman slumbered in, but the little girl was young, and her pigtails bobbed as the mattress bounced beneath her feet. The little girl, in that moment, was tangible, and the jumping on the bed only lasted a moment before the girl bounded off and went to the dresser in the room. She picked up a brush, and she brushed her hair as children were wont to do, poorly, and she smiled at herself in a mirror that, for once, showed her reflection.
"That's it," Atticus said, and she sulked and put the brush down, and then she was light and spirit once more. Incorporeal and sullen as she sat in a puddle of spirit-tafetta at his feet.
Atticus smiled at Aiden, though he, Atticus, looked much weaker for the effort exerted.
Which brought them back to James and Nishka, and the problem there. "Can ask her, if you want. If she wants him to go. Think she wants answers, personally. Suspects he was killed. Maybe he has the answers. Maybe he doesn't. Maybe he'll lie. Can never tell with the dead." In life, people were who they were and as they were. In death, they were desperate. This was Atticus' experience.
Lazily, he grinned at Aiden. "Just make sure you give me a good shove when my time comes." Wasn't really worried about Heaven or Hell. Just didn't want to be like his haunts. Staying, it was anguish. No one knew that better than the man who'd been surrounded by these dead all his life.