Graves’ ghost tapped its way around the circumference of his invisible prison with vaporous knuckles that felt solid enough against the symbolized glass, looking for a weak spot in the force-field and growing increasingly frustrated with each rotation. He didn’t know how long he’d been down here, interred within Lia’s underground bunker. It seemed like hours had passed already. He could’ve used a cigarette or a drink, and he would’ve settled for something to read. No dice, though. He began to curse as he tapped, under his breath at first, but then with more volume.
Tap tap tap. “Dammit.” Tap tap tap. “Dammit.” Tap tap tap. “Dammit.” Tap tap tap. “Dammit!”
As Graves grew angry, the bound-up lighter Lia’d stowed away on her bookshelf grew hot. The twine began to smoke, and the smoke swirled inside the inverted water glass.
Graves noticed this. He paused, getting an idea, and then strategically went nuts, bellowing at the top of his lungs and hammering on the psychic boundary Lia’d trapped him under, getting just as mad about his confinement as he possibly goddamn could.
The twine flamed and went up in a flash. Smoke filled the interior of the glass. The red-hot lighter pulsed deep within the gray miasma, glowing like a ruby beacon in a fog. Graves’ bones stood back up inside his stolen coat as his ghost evaporated. The transition from spirit to solid happened instantaneously, requiring no further effort on his part.
“Now that’s more like it,” his restored-to-animation skeleton said aloud.
Graves peeled off his tangled raincoat and tossed it aside. He stretched, groaning, and his spine crackled all the way up. The lighter’s glow faded away in the dense cloud of smog still lingering under the glass.
“All righty, then,” Graves said. “If nobody minds, I think I’ll just be on my-”
Clink. His fractured forehead tapped against Lia’s barrier when he tried to walk away.
“Oh,” he finished. “Ow.”
He rubbed the exit crater above his eye as he looked over at the smoke-filled glass up on the shelf. The twine was long gone, burnt away, but the intention symbolized by the glass itself apparently remained in effect.
“Dammit,” Graves said, like he was picking up a refrain.
He sat his bones down on the floor in the same posture his ghost had assumed while ruminating and drummed his fingers on his kneecap. An air exchanger of some kind went on with a soft whoosh.
A lone dust mote drifted down from an air vent, floating right past Graves’ nosehole. He followed its drift with his finger until the bone clicked against Lia’s magic field… even as the mote sailed lazily on toward whatever corner it would finally fetch up in.
“Hmmm.”
It was only then that he noticed the coat he’d tossed aside was lying on the floor, well outside his established circle.
Graves thought about this. Thought hard. He looked up at the glass on the shelf, wondering if he might be able to knock it off.
It would take a little experimentation to find out.
He took off his hat and moved it toward the barrier. The felt brim crumpled against empty air at exactly the point he expected, the crown bunching up into his bony hand.
He pulled it back, then tossed it gently, like a kid flying an overturned pie tin. It sailed easily outside the barrier this time around, now that he wasn’t in contact with it.
“Well all right,” Graves said. If he threw hard enough, he might have a chance at hitting Lia’s voodoo waterglass. He bent to retrieve the hat, but his forehead and hands clinked against the magic boundary once again.
The hat, he understood in dismay, was out of reach, and he had nothing else to throw.
He sagged against the unseen barrier in defeat. “Coulda planned that out better, couldn’t I?” he muttered.