Although it couldn't be said that the girl known as Katherine had made many friends throughout her eighteen years of life, that didn't mean she was completely alone. Setting aside the people from her church, the redhead got along with at least a dozen people in town, including her two best friends, Luka and Rachel.
Rachel had been in her life for nearly a decade, ever since they attended the same elementary school. Back then, Rachel and her mother had just moved to Hertford to open a botanical shop. As the new girl in school and immune to the kind of malice that surrounded Katherine, Rachel found the redhead and the rumors about her intriguing, which led to their friendship.
At the time, Katherine had only just begun to understand the nature of her supernatural gift, making it incredibly difficult for her to make friends. It was no surprise that she found herself isolated among her peers. But due to Rachel's protective nature and strong personality, it didn't take long for her to become Katherine's best friend—and her little bodyguard.
Nowadays, they were inseparable, and if it weren't for their responsibilities—one helping her mother at the botanical shop and the other assisting people at the church—they would probably spend every day together. After all, Katherine needed someone to confide in about the supernatural aspects of her life, and Rachel simply loved those kinds of stories.
Luka and Katherine's friendship had a different, much more recent origin—one that began at a funeral, of all things. In retrospect, it was a rather tragic story, with a socially awkward and emotionally inept Katherine doing everything in her power to comfort a stranger she found crying at a freshly dug grave.
In truth, Katherine had done a terrible job trying to console Luka after his parents died in a tragic car accident. She simply lacked the aptitude and experience for it, but her mere presence, her kindness, and her unwavering belief that Luka's parents were in a better place had been enough for him.
Today, they were great friends, although Katherine had begun to sense that something was shifting between them. There was something different in the way Luka looked at her, something she couldn't quite understand—but whatever it was, it had caused many awkward moments and tension in their friendship.
Things worsened when Luka accidentally discovered that Katherine secretly harbored feelings for Professor Flamesworth, who, as fate would have it, was Luka's uncle and legal guardian after his parents' passing. At the moment, Luka and Katherine were in the middle of a fight—or something like that. Still, she hoped things would return to normal, even if she didn't understand why they had fallen apart in the first place.
As for why Katherine was reminding herself that she wasn't a completely isolated person desperate for human contact—that she actually had friends—well, even someone as socially inept as her understood that spending her Saturday morning playing with children ten years younger than her in a park might make her look a little pathetic.
Yet, despite those thoughts running through her mind and the burning sensation in her lungs from chasing the kids around in a game of tag, all it took was seeing their smiles for Katherine to regain her energy and forget all the little details.
Did it even matter what others thought of her? Katherine didn't think so. Or rather, she already knew that, with few exceptions, the people in Hertford looked at her with disdain, so adding another eccentricity to her long list wouldn't make much of a difference. Besides, she wasn't just there to play with little Petrov and Anneth—she was there to fulfill a promise.
"Kath, can you tell us another story before you leave?" Petrov shouted as soon as their last game ended. His hazel eyes and short brown hair made him look like a miniature version of his father, who sat patiently on a nearby bench, watching over them.
Katherine crouched down to meet the nine-year-old's gaze before brushing the dirt off his blue jacket with her hands. "Only if you help Anneth gather her things," she said, her voice carrying a well-practiced blend of sweetness and firmness—something that didn't come naturally to her but that she had learned from the best.
"Alright, I'll help my sister," Petrov said, averting his gaze shyly before running off to assist Anneth.
Anneth, with her pink dress, white tights, and a jacket that was a mix of both colors, looked like the typical child adored by her parents. Her golden curls and bright blue eyes practically radiated innocence, completing the picture—she seemed straight out of a commercial for children's products.
"She looks like her mother," Katherine thought with a hint of sadness as she watched the siblings helping each other. Her gaze unconsciously drifted toward the reason she was here in the first place—the person to whom she had made her promise.
Sitting on the park bench was Ulrich, the children's father, looking like someone who hadn't slept in a week—probably hadn't shaved or taken care of himself in just as long—and who was running more on coffee and sheer willpower than anything else. His brown hair was greasy and unkempt, dark circles cascaded from his eyes, nearly reaching the mess of his neglected beard. The man had seen better days, and no one could blame him for it. But he wasn't the one Katherine had her eyes on.
Standing beside Ulrich—or something like that—was a woman, his wife, Anabelle. She had been beautiful once; Ulrich had undoubtedly been the envy of many. But none of that could be appreciated now—not just because she had changed into what she was now, but because Katherine was the only one who could see her.
Her golden curls, the same ones she had passed down to her daughter Anneth, were now a tangled mess, matted with blood that clung to the base of her skull in a sticky mass. Her body was twisted and broken in a way that was painful to look at. Her once-clear, vibrant blue eyes were now dull and lifeless, like stagnant lakes devoid of any emotion.
The sight was gruesome and heartbreaking, to the point where the tire marks across her torn clothing merely explained the cause—they couldn't make her tragedy any worse, because there was only so much one could process emotionally at once.
Anabelle was the reason Katherine was here. She was the one who had asked—no, begged—her to help her get closer to her children, to interact with them even if not directly. She had taught Katherine how to talk to kids, how to play with them, how to make them behave—with that tone of voice only a true mother knows.
In the end, under the ghost's constant pleas, Katherine had made a promise to do everything she could to help the family torn apart by death. Honestly, she still wasn't sure what to think about her gift, but seeing the siblings play happily and catching the faintest hint of relief in Ulrich's expression made it all worth it.
"Maybe she'll find peace soon and move on," Katherine thought as she focused on Anabelle's ghost, who seemed more serene and translucent with each passing day. "Then I'll have fulfilled my promise." That had been the agreement, after all—Katherine had decided from the beginning to help both the living and the dead when she got involved in all of this.