The Intangibles (A Ghost Town Side Story)

You probably don't need to have read Ghost Town to read this, but it might help. This contains spoilers for parts of Ghost Town's ending, though, so if you think you might want to read it in future, maybe give this one a miss for now. Warnings for strong language, depression, anxiety, homophobia, and having the kind of argument with your parents that more or less ends your association with each other. There's probably a more concise way of putting that, but I'm not sure what it is and I felt I should warn for it anyway.

One final note: this is a one-shot, but it's also really long, so I've divided it up into sections for ease of navigation. Here's a table of contents:

I
II
III




I

I'm nervous, of course. It's not my first time in Goldenrod, but it's close to it, and even just the walk from the station is much more than I'm used to: so many people, so much traffic, cars and bikes and trams all inches from collision at any one time. But I made it, even through that awful trip on the metro where I held up a line of angry Goldenrodders for five minutes while I struggled with my ticket, and now here I am at the Pokémon Centre, back in familiar territory at last. It's comforting: that yellow light spilling through automatic doors, the red-topped desk and colourful chairs in the lobby. They build these the same all over the peninsula. So that kids on their journey always have somewhere like home to come back to.

Home for me too, for a while: I spent pretty much my last few ducats getting here, staking everything on the fact that Dr Spearing would be able to do something that no one else could. If she can't … well, then I'm going to have to deal with that.

It's a problem for another time. The receptionist is looking at me around the side of her computer monitor, eyebrow raised.

“Can I help you?”

Okay. Moment of truth. I smile hesitantly and take my trainer card from my pocket.

“Hi,” I say. “I'm … I need to see Dr Spearing.”

The receptionist nods. High cheekbones, immaculate hair. A little too intimidating for a Pokémon Centre receptionist, I think, but maybe eleven-year-olds don't notice that kind of thing.

“You have a ghost-type?” she asks. I nod. “Okay,” she says, turning to her computer and tapping at the keyboard. “I can check her availability for you, one moment … Right. How serious is it?”

I swallow.

“Pretty bad,” I tell her. “I don't know if … she can't really hold her shape any more. Her hearing's gone, too.”

Sympathetic smile. Her teeth are very white and even.

“I'm sorry,” she says. “That does sound bad.” She speaks like someone who really knows what she's talking about; looking past her shoulder, I can see her arbok coiled behind the desk, odd notches in its heavy head and a milky film over its eyes. It's hard not to stare. I don't know what could have torn up its face like that, but it must have been horrific. “Okay. I think I can get you in tomorrow, but it will have to be first thing. Eight o'clock okay?”

“Fine,” I say. “Any time, I just … need to see her.”

“Sure.” She looks up from her screen. “Name?”

“Uh, Morty. Morty Fletcher.”

“Are you staying with us?”

“Yeah,” I say, already handing my card over the counter. “Here.”

“Thank you, Morty.”

She starts putting in my details, delivering the usual spiel on autopilot: mealtimes, laundry costs, computer room access. I've heard these words so many times now that they have the comforting ring of familiarity, even though the content is less than pleasant. As a kid, I could stay here for weeks, but they don't extend that kind of courtesy to people whose journeys are over; you get five days, if you're still a registered trainer, and then you're on your own.

They saved it, right? Some doctor who knew about giant snakes put its head back together and it slithered on out of that operating theatre and back into its life. So it stands to reason that this doctor who knows about ghosts …

I'm getting my hopes up, I realise, and try my best to squash them. Ghosts are impossible to treat, right? Weird and incorporeal and mostly immune to medicines. I need to remember that. There are no promises here.

“Any questions?” asks the receptionist.

I try to smile.

“No,” I say. “I'm good, thanks.”

“Okay. Room 24, then. Second floor.” She smiles back. “Don't worry,” she tells me. “Dr Spearing is the best at what she does.”

“Sure,” I say. “Thanks.”



I sit on the narrow Pokémon Centre bed, eyes closed. If I stretch out my left arm as far as I can, my fingertips will just about touch the mirror; if I reach above my head, my hand will be three and a half inches below the beige shade of the ceiling light. I could straighten my leg, and about ten degrees before it reaches horizontal my foot will tap against the far wall.

I know this room. It's mine. More mine than the bedroom I left behind two months ago, anyway. In a minute I'll take my stuff out of my bag, put it away in the same drawers I did when I lived in this same room back in Azalea; and a couple of weeks after I leave, just when I can't stay out in the wilderness a moment longer, I will return to this room in another town and do it all over again.

I open my eyes: inoffensive colours, flame-resistant paint. The kind of carpet that can take a pokémon chewing on it.

It's kind of shitty that this is home, but I guess this isn't the kind of thing you get a choice about.



At half seven the next morning, I'm already walking down the little glass-walled corridor that connects the Centre to the Royal Westside Hospital. Most Centres have an infirmary wing, but given that Goldenrod's is right next to the beating heart of pokémon medicine in Johto, I guess it made more sense to the planners to simply join the two.

It looks so peaceful. Like Mahogany in January, when the snow covers the town and buries everything in gleaming white silence.

I don't want to think about that. I take Roddy's ball from my pocket, reminding myself why I'm here, and hurry on across the bridge into the hospital.

I have instructions from the receptionist; apparently I want the Intangibles Clinic, which is all the way over on the other side of the building, tucked away on the fifth floor. She offered me a map, but I was too embarrassed to take it, so I lied and said I had a good head for directions. In the end, I have to ask two other people, first the receptionist at the main desk and then a nurse clearly on his way to a smoke break, and even then it takes me a full fifteen minutes to find my way through the labyrinth of blandly pale corridors to the scuffed green doors of my destination.

It's different in here: between the deep blue walls and the heavy curtains, it feels like dawn hasn't come yet. What light there is comes from an eclectic mix of lamps scattered across the waiting-room; it looks to me like someone just went around a series of charity shops and picked out every floor lamp going.

“Hi,” calls someone, seeing me hovering in the doorway. “Come in. Don't mind the dark, it's to keep the ghosts happy.”

The speaker is a handsome guy in his late twenties, leaning out of a window let into one wall. Warm eyes, bright red hair. That medical professional kind of look on his face, calm and competent.

“Hey,” he says, as I approach. “First of the day, huh? I guess you must be Morty.”

“That's right.” I try to smile, to be a personable kind of guy who this man will be nice to, but now that I'm actually here I can't seem to make my face do what I want. It's finally happening. So many weeks of waiting, and now there's nothing left but to sit down and wait to be told whether Roddy is going to die. “I, um, I have an appointment at eight. With Dr Spearing.”

The man smiles back, with much more success than I had. His name badge reads LORNE.

“Sure,” he says, scribbling something on a piece of paper. “Everyone's appointment is with Dr Spearing. She's the expert, after all. Have a seat, Morty. I'll let the doctor know you're here.”

I want to say thank you, but my worry seems to be a solid thing now, climbing up through my throat and blocking my voice with a tangle of spiny legs. I nod instead, gripping Roddy's ball so tight it hurts, and find a seat over by one of the uglier lamps.

My watch ticks. Across the room, a gastly flows up from behind a painting of a boat and watches me with wide, curious eyes. It changes shape so fluidly, morphing from trickle of gas to smoking orb in just a second, and though I really don't want to be that guy I feel my eyes prickle a little in response. I think the gastly knows; it sticks out its tongue and dives under the clinic door, vanishing away to who knows where.

7.53. My stomach growls, but I'm not hungry. Haven't even been able to think about food this morning. There will be time to eat later, after I know what it is that's going to happen.

Click. A speaker somewhere crackles, and I hear a woman's voice, deep and husky: Morty Fletcher, room 1, please.

Lorne smiles at me as I get up.

“Good luck,” he says. “I'm sure it will be fine.”

I wish I had his optimism, his instinctive kindness towards a stranger in pain. I look at him for a moment, trying to respond, then give up and head down the corridor to the first door on the right. It's ajar, but I knock anyway, and get a response:

“Come in.”

Her voice has a north Johto burr to it, under the polite veneer of her bedside manner. It makes me even more nervous, in a way – I left that part of the world for a reason – but okay, I'm here, I can't back out now. I push open the door―

―and freeze.

Dr Spearing looks up from her desk, her hair swirling around her head in muddy purple curls.

“Hello,” she says, smiling. Her mouth and eyes are full of green light, like windows onto some otherworldly furnace. “Please take a seat.”

I knew she was dead, of course. She's practically a legend in Mahogany: the kid genius who won a full scholarship to study medicine in Saffron, got killed on her way home one Christmas and then came back from the dead to invent a methodology for treating ghost-types. Except that as much as people talk about her achievements, as much as she is an emblem of small-town pride, she never comes home, and nobody really seems to want her to.

So yes, I knew what I was going to see when I walked in here. I've seen her photo in the Mahogany Courier a thousand times. But even so, it's impossible not to stare.

“Sorry,” I mumble. “I, uh …”

“It's all right,” she adds, looking faintly amused. “You'd be surprised how many people aren't expecting it. Have a seat.”

I sit, still staring. I have some experience with ghost-types, of course, but not with the kind that used to be people. Spearing is tall and bulky and eerily ageless, made up of purple fog that curls off her skin in thin, smoky wisps, and though I know I should be making an effort, that she's probably sick to death of seeing fear in people's eyes, it is very hard not to be intimidated right now.

“Now,” she says, swivelling her chair to face mine. “Before I begin, I should introduce my colleagues Audrey and Horne here.”

I didn't even notice, but she's right, we're not alone: there's a younger woman sitting in the corner, a notebook and pen in her hands and a misdreavus hovering by her shoulder. The misdreavus sees me looking and pulls a face, his eyes glowing a brighter orange for a moment.

“They're shadowing me today,” explains Spearing. “Is that okay with you?”

“Um, sure, I guess.”

“Great.” Spearing clasps her hands together in her lap. “So, Morty. You're here about your partner? A haunter, I heard?”

“Yeah.” It's harder to raise my hand than it should be. As if Roddy's ball has suddenly turned to lead. “Here. She, um … she's kind of lost her shape. And I don't think she can hear me, either.”

“Okay.” Spearing holds out one hand. Her wrist and forearm are covered in slashes of the same green light that forms her eyes. I think I might know what this means, but I really hope I'm wrong. “May I see her?”

I hesitate – I know, I shouldn't, but I do – and then put the ball into her palm. Her fog is surprisingly warm to the touch. Almost like living skin.

“Thank you.” Spearing turns the ball between her fingers. “What's her name?”

“Arianrhod. Roddy.”

She raises her eyebrows.

“Like the princess, or the assassin?”

Johto has two famous Arianrhods in its past: a princess from nine centuries ago who ran off with a Kantan knight, and a killer who worked for the Blackthorn dragon clan a hundred and fifty years later. I actually didn't know about either of them back when Roddy and I first met; I just thought it sounded fancy, and she seemed to like it.

“Both,” I lie. “I guess.”

“Fair.” That's a touch of Mahogany there. I wonder what she sounds like when not at work. Like my mother, maybe.

God. Why would you think about that, Morty?

“Well, let's have a look at her.” A flash of light, and there she is, spilling over the desk in a dark, sludgy puddle: Roddy. My haunter, though you'd never know it to look at her any more. “Hm,” says Spearing, leaning over her. “Okay.” She motions in Audrey's direction. “Separation. Quite advanced. Look here …” I turn away sharply: her fingers are in the puddle now, probing through Roddy like a crow poking at roadkill. Makes my stomach turn. “Crystallisation. Bits of something else, too. I'll need to get these under a microscope, but they give us something to go on in terms of her genre.”

I can't decide whether all this jargon makes me feel better or worse. She clearly knows what she's doing, which I guess should be a comfort – but there's something awful about being confronted with the depth of my own ignorance like this. How did I think we were going to make it on our own? I don't even know what a bloody genre is.

Roddy moves slightly, lapping at Spearing's fingers. I'm still not looking, but I can hear it: that gentle liquid sound, like a pool of water just barely disturbed.

“Okay,” says Spearing, and I force myself to look at her again. Her hands are back in her lap; on the desk, Roddy slithers back and forth, white grains moving around inside her without ever quite forming an eye. “Your partner has separated, Morty. Something has gone wrong with the force that holds her together, and the physical components of her body have split apart from each other. It's not uncommon among ghosts, and though it looks dramatic it's quite an easy symptom to treat – but it can have any number of underlying causes, and unless I can determine what the root of the issue is, I'm afraid that it's very likely to happen again.”

Easy to treat. I heard easy to treat in there somewhere. That's good. Less encouraging is the bit about it happening again. I know she's not threatening me, just explaining, but it's so hard to take it that way.

“Okay,” I say. “Um … so she's going to be all right?”

“Almost certainly.” She's got that same medical professional face as Lorne, although in her case the fact that her hair keeps crawling around on her skull kind of detracts from the soothing effect. “Your partner's physical form is by far the smallest part of her, Morty. Ghosts are mostly made of emotion. Which is to say that a sufficiently passionate ghost can come back from anything.” Brief pause. “Are you and Roddy close?”

The day they figured it out. I'd left my instant messages open, but I'm sure I locked the computer; I guess Dad must have been using the admin account to monitor what I was doing. Or maybe there was some other clue, some mistake I made. But that day when we fought, and as our voices rose Roddy exploded into the space between us, making herself huge and dark with borrowed shadows, and almost glassed Mum's meganium when he tried to intervene.

They only let me keep her after my journey on the condition I teach her to obey them, too. And she did, for all those years, until she had to pick a side and chose me without a second thought.

“Yeah,” I say. It sounds so dumb, divorced from all the memories, but I think Spearing gets it.

“Then she'll probably be fine,” she tells me. “If she cares, she will come back for you.”
An uncomfortable kind of silence, lying thick in my throat and sinuses. I really hope Spearing and Audrey can't tell how close to tears I am.

“Um,” I say, swallowing hard. “Okay. Okay, that's … good to know.”

Spearing smiles in a way that makes me think she deals with a lot of kids.

“I hoped it might be,” she says. “If it's all right with you, I'd like to keep Roddy here a while and run some tests.”

“Uh, sure, if that'll help.”

“It will. I do need to ask you a few more questions, though. That okay?”

Yes, anything. She asks if I know what genre Roddy is, and when I say no explains what that means; apparently ghosts are too weird and idiosyncratic to form species, but they can at least be sorted into rough groups. Have I battled with Roddy? Yes: all the time; I've started again recently. She raises her eyebrows, asks me if that's a hobby or what.

There's something strange about the way she asks it. I pretend not to notice, just tell her yeah, it is, maybe I'll enter a tournament, and though she gives me a look, all she says is okay, well, you must be familiar with her typing and capabilities then.

The questions get more technical and less suspicious: much easier to answer. I think Spearing has something in mind, because after a couple more (where did you two partner? is she good at taking electric-type moves?) she turns to Audrey and asks for her opinion; Audrey looks startled, but suggests that maybe Roddy's in the eleventh or thirteenth genres. Spearing nods, pleased, and says that's her read too. Partly expressed ground typing, she says. Better simulate the elemental interactions before running any tests. Now, how would you describe her health in general? When did you start noticing these symptoms?

Nothing dangerous here. I keep talking, easing my way past my fears, and Spearing nods and writes everything down as if every word matters. Hell, maybe it does.

“All right,” she says, when I'm done. “Thank you, Morty. That's very helpful.” She recalls Roddy and straightens up in her chair. “Do you have any questions of your own?”

Only one. I hesitate, not wanting to commit the weight of it to my tongue, but it's Roddy, it's all I have left, and so in the end I have to ask:

“Is she gonna die?”

Spearing shakes her head.

“No,” she says. “That's a very remote possibility. As I said, we can treat the symptoms. Once I have the preliminary test results, recoagulating her will be a half hour job, and after that I'd like to run a couple more tests – but if I'm right, she'll just need a few days of therapy and some time to convalesce. I can't say how long it will take to find the underlying cause, but I promise you that we will find it.”

She's confident. I wish I could share in that.

“Okay?” she asks, when I don't respond.

“Okay,” I murmur. “Okay.”

“Good,” says Spearing. “Good. I'll take her down to the lab now, and we can get started right away. Come on, I'll walk you out.”

She stands. Audrey starts to as well, Horne floating up towards head height, but Spearing motions for her to stay sitting.

“Just a moment,” she says. “I want your opinion on something in a minute.”

“Oh,” says Audrey, looking slightly worried. “Sure, Tacoma. Dr Spearing. Sorry.”

Spearing waves her apology aside, and I follow her out into the dim light of the hall.

“As I said, she'll have to stay here a while,” she tells me, as she shuts the door behind us. “At least a week or two. You have somewhere to stay in town while you wait?”

I know then, of course. I'm not surprised. Something about her burning eyes makes me think she can see right through me.

That's not to say I'm not afraid, though.

“Yeah,” I tell her. “I'm at the Pokémon Centre. But, uh, this isn't my journey, so …”

“Ah. Only five days?” She shakes her head. “All that money on move R&D, and the League still can't spare anything for older trainers … doesn't matter. I'll page the Centre. You can stay there as long as it takes.”

A place to stay. An actual place to stay, for more than the next few days. And one meal a day, laundry, healthcare …

I can't believe it. It must be visible on my face, too, because Spearing grins and says:

“Yes, really.”

“Thank you,” I say. The words sound so inadequate, so stupid in my mouth, but like before, Spearing seems to understand.

“Great. I'll have Lorne send any updates over there.” We're at the waiting room. She stops in the entrance, unaware or careless of the guy sitting across the room and staring at her over his magazine, and gives me a serious look. “The results will come back late today or early tomorrow,” she says, “but you can get the receptionist at the Centre to call the clinic if you have any more questions, all right? Or if you … need anything.”

She looks slightly uncomfortable, which means … I don't know what it means. It means something, for sure.

What is she offering me here? Not medical advice, that much I'm certain of. And maybe I'm in a position where I can't turn it down, whatever it is – but she's a stranger, and she's spooky, and she's north Johto. So.

“Right,” I say. Can't quite keep the wariness out of my voice. “Thanks.”

She pauses a moment longer, as if expecting more, but if she is then she's out of luck: that's all she's getting.

“Okay,” she says, reaching vaguely towards her face and then seeming to think better of it. “Well, I'd better get Roddy down to the lab. Bye, Morty. And try not to worry.”

She turns around and glides away, barely touching the ground. I stare obviously, rudely, and then glance around, feeling guilty. Both Lorne and the guy with the magazine are watching.

“Mm,” I say, not quite succeeding in my attempt to be nonchalant, and head back to the Centre with bowed head and burning cheeks.



Lunch is the one meal a day I get for free here, as a trainer on the road but no longer officially on my journey. It's okay. I still don't have much of an appetite. But I'm here, I need to make the most of it, and so I force myself through the nauseating smell of food and into the canteen. I get a bacon sandwich, which seems like the least depressing thing on the menu, and sweep some bread and apples into my bag for later. I checked with the receptionist, and apparently Spearing did extend my stay, but I guess she couldn't get me any more meal credits.

I take my haul to a corner, where I hope my age and sour expression will insulate me from the kids. It's October, and a lot of kids on their journey must be starting to think about breaking for winter, but summer lingers here by the coast and the Centre is still heaving with eleven-year-olds and their partners. I don't even know if I've seen a single other person my own age here. There was one punk girl who must be a few years older than me coming out of the bathroom last night, but even if I wanted to speak to her (and I really don't) she's much too intimidating to approach.

After a while, you don't really notice the noise. I've spent a lot of time in Centres, over the past two months; forks on plates, excited voices, barking and whining and scratching, have all faded into one dull hum at the back of my head. I pick at my sandwich in silence, worrying about Roddy and about what Spearing will do with her suspicions, until a shadow enters the corner of my vision and I look up with a kind of annoyed relief.

“Hi,” says the guy from the waiting room. “This seat taken?”

There is very obviously no one at this table but me.

“No,” I say.

“Mind if I join you?” he asks.

I sigh.

“I guess not,” I reply, trying hard to communicate in every way but verbal that I do, and watch him sit down.

Longish hair swept neatly back from his face. Nice clothes. A light smattering of acne over one cheekbone. He looks – and speaks – like someone who doesn't spend a lot of time in hostels like these.

“I'm Eusine,” he says.

“Eusine?” I ask, despite myself. It's a hard name to ignore, no matter how much you want to be left alone to brood.

“I know,” he sighs. “But my sister's called Hypatia, so I figure I got off lightly.”

“Hypatia,” I repeat. “Wow. I'm, uh … Morty.”

Eusine pauses, fork halfway to his mouth.

“As in, short for Mortimer?”

“Yes. Technically.”

A serious nod.

“You know the burden, then,” he says, voice dripping melodrama. “I got the dumbest name in Kanto and you got …”

He trails off, realising what he's about to say.

“The dumbest name in Johto?” I finish for him. “Thanks.”

“Crap. Didn't mean that.” He scratches nervously at his acne. “Uh, okay, let me take another run at that one. I saw you at the clinic and thought I'd say hi. You're in town 'cause of your partner?”

“Yep.”

“Cool. Or not cool, I guess, I'm sorry. But, uh, me too. My gastly, he's got all slow? Like he's in a video playing at half speed while the world is normal.”

I don't even know what to say to that. It sounds like a joke, but ghosts are weird, and one thing I'm learning today is that despite almost six years of partnership I don't know a goddamn thing about them.

“Sorry,” I say. “My haunter is … I don't know. Dr Spearing says she's separated, which I guess is the medical term for turning into a pile of gloop.”

I didn't mean to sound so bitter. Or maybe I did; maybe I want this guy to shut up and sod off. Leave me to worry in peace.

“Sorry,” he says, eyes wide. I think he means it. “Sounds rough.”

I shrug. I honestly do not want to talk about it, even if it's all I can think of. Makes me feel stupid, almost as much as it frightens me. I should have found more partners when it became clear was how I'd get by. But what would I have fed them? The only reason I could take Roddy was because she can spook people and eat their fear.

“Dr Spearing knows her stuff, though,” Eusine persists. “I guess both our partners will be okay.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I hope so.”

I force down a bite of my sandwich. He spears a piece of sweet potato and pops it in his mouth.

“She's something though, huh. I heard she was … well, what she is. But I guess I still wasn't really expecting it, you know?”

“She's from my hometown,” I answer, without thinking. “So―”

I cut myself off, wishing I hadn't spoken. That just invites a follow-up question – and sure enough, here it comes:

“Oh, cool,” says Eusine. “You know her, then?”

“No, I just …” I sigh. “Where are you from?”

“Celadon.”

A big Kantan city. Not Goldenrod or Saffron big, but still a city, so I guess he wouldn't know.

“Maybe this doesn't make sense to you,” I say. “But I'm from Mahogany, and literally the only two people from there who anyone has ever heard of are her and Pryce Aske, so. She's kind of a big deal back home.”

I say home as if that's what it is. Eusine, for his part, looks at me like he believes it.

“Right,” he says. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense. You ever met her before, or …?”

“No. She left town a long time ago. Lots of us do.”

“Us?” he asks. “You don't live there any more?”

Goddamn it, Morty. Try thinking before you speak, why don't you?

“No, I do,” I lie. “I'm just here 'cause of Dr Spearing.”

“By yourself?” God, he's persistent.

“Yep. Just me.”

“Right,” he says again. “Right.”

A pause. I think he might have finally run out of questions to ask. I give him two seconds, stretching my patience to its limit, then make my escape.

“Well, nice talking to you,” I tell him, standing up and grabbing my tray. “Bye, Eusine.”
“Oh,” he says, looking at my unfinished sandwich. “Um … yeah. I guess I'll see you around? Like here, and at the clinic.”

“Yeah,” I reply. “Sure.”

I walk out, past the noisy rows of kids and squabbling pokémon, and I can feel Eusine's eyes on my back every step of the way.



Tonight I have the nightmare again, the one where it goes wrong. Where he didn't just threaten to hit me but he did, and Roddy flew into his face the way she is forbidden to do to anyone, and he breathed her in and fell down on the floor, clutching at his throat.

It's not a nightmare because he gets hurt. It's a nightmare because as I look at him writhing on the carpet, my mother's voice fading in my ears, I don't feel anything but satisfaction.



I wake early, and take some coffee to an armchair in the corner of the lounge, where I sit with my Game Boy and try to look unfriendly. It seems to work; those kids who have nothing better to do than hang out here at the Centre – tired from travel or waiting for their partners to come back from the infirmary – give me a wide berth.

On the screen, my pixellated little knights and clerics have their health bars sliced away by rogues and their sneasel, over and over. I'm much too worried to concentrate, although I guess it doesn't really matter. Since I left home― no, let's call it what it is: since I ran away, I've spent a lot of time hanging out in Pokémon Centres near plug sockets, and I've beaten this game three times already.

When are they going to call? I should have asked Spearing, but I just didn't think. (Story of my life.) Since Azalea, getting Roddy to the ghost clinic has been the only thing in the world; I never really thought about what might happen once we actually made it here.

On the wall, the hands of the clock click around in anxious circles. The lounge fills up, empties out. Someone's marill comes over to tug curiously on my Game Boy's charging cable; before I can react, his partner is right there to drag him away, red-faced and apologetic. I smile at her – I was a nervous kid on a journey too, once – but she just runs off back to her friends.

I kill a wizard and a sigilyph. (Creighton's Vow of Silence combined with Sarissa's Pike Charge beats all magic users before the endgame; I can do that even on autopilot.) I make another cup of coffee. (Too much milk and sugar; I keep adding spoonfuls just because my hands need to be busy.) I think about going for a walk, but then worry I might miss a call and settle myself more firmly in my chair.

And finally, just as my stomach starts me thinking about how to time my lunch so I miss Eusine, I hear a familiar voice crackle from the tannoy:

“Morty Fletcher? Message from the clinic for you.”

I jump up, scaring a pair of zubat drinking in the sounds above the radio, and head out to the lobby, where the receptionist from yesterday is back on duty at the desk.

“Hi,” she says. This time I get her name: TAMIKO, winking at me from the badge on her lapel. “I've got good news for you. Lorne from the Intangibles Clinic says your haunter is awake―”

“Can I see her?” The words are out before I've even realised I'm speaking. “Sorry,” I say. “Didn't mean to …”

She smiles her perfect, picket-fence smile.

“It's fine,” she says. “I know I was like that when Makoto woke up after her operation.”

Behind her, the arbok uncoils, turning her sightless head towards her partner with unerring accuracy. I don't really know how smart snakes are, but she seems to know her name.

“Anyway.” Tamiko gestures at her computer screen. “Dr Spearing actually wants to know if you can come over and see her right away. I think she – um, your haunter, I mean – is a little scared and confused, and she'd appreciate a friendly face.”

“Okay,” I say, legs already itching with the urge to be away. “Okay, thanks so much, I―”

“Go on, Morty,” says Tamiko, looking amused. “No need to be polite.”

I'm too impatient even to blush; by the time she's finished speaking, I'm already halfway over to the stairs.

“I told you!” she calls after me. “Dr Spearing is the best!”

I guess she is, but I don't have the spare breath to agree.



I arrive breathless with anticipation, and also with having run as much of the way as I could manage without getting glared at too much by passing medical technicians. The clinic is as dimly lit as ever, though much more crowded; I guess there aren't a lot of options for sick ghosts. I do my best not to look at anyone waiting, feeling guilty about the fact that my partner is recovering while theirs aren't, and follow Lorne's directions down the corridor, past the consulting rooms and through the doors at the end into a long, dark room filled with the kind of creepy noises that can only mean ghosts.

I stand there, momentum arrested with the need to adjust my eyes, and then out of nowhere a vivid orange glare leaps into my face.

“Uumuluuoo,” burbles Horne, in that weird can't-quite-manage-words ghost way. “Ubulumuuu.”

“What my partner means to say,” says Audrey, stepping from somewhere to beckon him away from me, “is that Roddy's right over here.” She smiles. “Hello, Morty.”

“Mm,” I reply. It's about all I can manage; I'm still trying to get my heart to slow down. Bloody ghosts. Roddy hasn't tried to scare me for years now, but it took her eight very long months among humans to kick the habit. “Um … thank you.”

“No problem. This way.”

We walk down the ward – if that's what it is. I still can't see more than vague outlines, though I can hear gibbering and babbling and people talking in low voices. Kind of disorienting. Every step I take, I'm half afraid I'm going to hit my head on something.

“Ah. Morty.”

The dark heaves, swirls, and opens a pair of burning green eyes. Spearing fades into existence around them, and in her arms―

“Roddy!”

She bursts out of Spearing's hands in one long fluid movement, reaching out for me with her long, sharp fingers. She can't touch me – she's one of those haunter who are too corrosive for that – but she brushes her hands up and down my sleeves, body flying round and round my head.

“Mollolloy,” she whispers. Her voice is weak and hoarse, barely even audible. “Mollolloh, lolloh, loy.”

“Yeah,” I say, resisting the urge to stroke her. “Yeah, it's me, it's Morty.”

“Mollolloy.” Roddy twitches suddenly, one of her hands collapsing into a cloud of dust; she hisses, pulls it back together and pats my shoulder. I smell scorched fabric, but it's fine. She ruined this jacket a long time ago.

“As you can see, she's not quite back to usual,” says Spearing. “But that was as much as I could do without you.”

I look up from Roddy into her glowing eyes.

“Without me?”

“Yes. Remember I told you that ghosts are mostly emotion? In partnered ghosts, quite a lot of that emotion is attachment to their human.” Spearing gestures at her, still bobbing around me like she can't believe I'm here. “The more she sees of you, the stronger she'll be, and the better able to recover.” She claps her hands together. “Speaking of which, I can now offer you a diagnosis. Have you heard of an epistemic allergic reaction?”

“No. Is that what it is?”

“Yes, I think so. I'm waiting on some more results to determine the specifics, but based on preliminary testing, I suspect Roddy has had an extreme allergic reaction to a dream or concept. As for why I called you in …” She smiles. “I just thought the two of you could do with seeing each other, is all.”

I'm glad it's so dark; I feel like I'm blushing pretty hard right now. Although I suspect Spearing might have the night vision to see it anyway.

“Um,” I say. “Thanks.”

“Sure. I'm sorry to appear so suddenly, by the way. She was very scared when she woke up and couldn't find you; I had to take her into the shadows to calm her down. I think she thought you might be in trouble.”

There is just the faintest hint of a question in her voice.

“Yeah,” I say, looking at Roddy rather than her. “She worries.”

Understatement of the century. Since my little disagreement with my parents, Roddy has been even more vigilant than usual, looking for trouble in every face we pass. I've tried to explain to her that there was a very specific reason that Mum and Dad turned on me, that she doesn't need to worry about everyone, but of course she doesn't get it. Haunter find us as difficult to understand as we do them.

Spearing nods slowly.

“Of course,” she says. “Ghosts can be very protective.”

I don't think this is the statement that it pretends to be.

“Yep,” I reply. “Sure can.”

Pause. Audrey twists her fingers anxiously around each other and slips away, muttering something about another patient.

Roddy draws her scattered hands back towards her body, curling her fingers into claws. She can feel it in the air too, even if she doesn't know what it is.

“Roddy,” I say, pulling my sleeve over my hand and tapping her gently. “Don't strain yourself. Sorry,” I add, to Spearing. “Like I said. She worries.”

Her smile is one hundred per cent fake.

“Of course,” she says. “Do you have any other questions about her condition, while I'm here?”

“Uh. Yeah. You said she had an allergic reaction?”

“Yes, although that's not what the problem is.” She gestures at what I think is a chair. “Would you like to sit down?”

“Are you about to give me really bad news?”

She laughs.

“No,” she says. “Just being polite. Here.”

We sit, Spearing moving with confidence and me feeling around gingerly with outstretched hands. Roddy flows over with us, sticking close to my shoulder. When I first caught her, she used to be jealous of my pidgey, Vance, who rode around on my shoulder; after my journey ended and most of my partners went back to their old lives with their newfound strength, Roddy took up his spot with pleasure. Or as close as she could get without being dangerously close to my head, anyway.

I never even realised how much I missed this. It's been two weeks. Two weeks of carrying her around as a puddle in a ball, desperately hiking my way north towards Goldenrod and its vaunted ghost doctor. It seems like nothing now, but at the time it went on forever.

“So,” says Spearing, leaning forward in her chair. “As far as I can tell, a month or two ago, Roddy encountered an idea that reacted badly with her emotional substrate. This in itself wasn't enough to hurt her – there wouldn't have been any symptoms at the time. But some time after that, she must have picked up a minor illness – the ghost equivalent of a light cold, something that ordinarily she would have barely even noticed – and, with her essence still weak, it destabilised her to the point of separation. Are you with me so far?”

Yes. Yes, I'm with her, and I know exactly what it was that Roddy reacted to.

It's my fault. Just like everything else. It's my fault, and maybe I didn't mean to do it but that doesn't mean I wasn't the cause, and now Roddy's in hospital.

“Yeah,” I say, “I'm with you.” Concentrate. Got to get the important details here. Nobody else will get them for me. “So she's … she's going to be all right, isn't she?”

“Of course,” replies Spearing, and my heart lifts at the conviction in her voice: this is someone who means what she says, who doesn't just believe but knows that things are going to work out okay. “If I'm right, she just needs a couple of weeks to recover. I'd like to keep her here a while longer, though, to be sure that she's not going to relapse.”

I can't tell if she means this, or if she's lying so that I can keep staying at the Centre. It's not something I feel much like questioning right now.

“Okay,” I say. “Okay, great.” What else? Got to be more. Can't just sit here looking like some dumb kid, even if that's exactly what I am. “Um … So you're waiting on tests, right?”

“Yes. I should be able to tell you more soon – tomorrow at the latest. Anything else?”

I shake my head no. I feel like I should have more to say, but I just don't.

I hadn't even realised there was a curtain. Maybe this is more like a hospital ward than I thought.

“Okay,” I say, like a broken record. “Thanks.”

“Not at all,” replies Spearing. “I'm glad we were able to help. Let someone know if you need anything.”

She leaves. For a moment I stare after her, trying to tell if she walked off or straight-up vanished, but it's impossible to be sure. I give up, turn back to Roddy instead.

“Hey,” I say. She bobs up and down, staring into my face like she could eat me with her eyes.

“Lallyuh,” she hisses, gripping my sleeve as tight as she dares.

“Yeah,” I answer, a warmth spreading through my chest. “Me too.”



It takes a long time for me to be able to see the room properly; this is a place designed for ghosts, not for humans. When I do, I see it's both much smaller and much busier than I imagined: maybe twenty padded tables like they have in Centre infirmaries, most occupied. Gastly, haunter, a mismagius or two, several puddles connected to strange machines. A lone dusknoir, slumped with a horrible kind of solidity across its table, arm hanging off the edge. Nurses moving around, spectral partners making the dark quaver at their side.

I watch people come and go, talking to their partners, doing things I can't understand. Audrey and a doctor draw a curtain around a gastly and its partner, and lights begin to pulse irregularly through the fabric. Spearing takes a haunter that won't stop screaming in her arms and the two of them dissolve into silence.

None of it makes any sense, but somehow it's comforting anyway. I need it. Roddy is back, yes, but bits of her keep disintegrating, her eye or hand or mouth collapsing into airborne dust before reforming a moment later. I think the effort of holding together is wearing on her. After that first joyous burst of energy runs out, she sinks down onto the table at my side in a pool of herself, eyes closed.

She keeps hold of my sleeve, though. Letting me know she's okay.

I tell her about the Centre, about hiking up here through Ilex Forest and over the huge, windswept plains of southern Goldenweal. I look at the ghosts flying overhead, carrying strange devices that look half machine and half magic. I listen to the quiet, ordinary chaos of the ward.

Roddy doesn't answer me when I speak. I keep talking anyway.



I can't stay forever. I need to eat, for one thing. I also need air; I've spent enough time with Roddy that I don't mind the close, dark spaces she loves, but I'm still human, and sometimes a human needs light and space. I tell her I will be back, which wakes her up enough to babble some kind of argument with me, and head on out.

Even the gloom of the waiting room is blinding. I linger for a moment in the doorway, dreading the electric light of the corridor outside, and while I'm there I hear someone call my name.

“Hey, Morty!”

Well, shit.

“Eusine,” I say, turning around. “Hi.”

“Hi.” He smiles. It's a very nice smile, which might be why it annoys me so much. “Heading out for lunch?”

“Yeah.”

“Same. I'll go back to the Centre with you.”

“Oh,” I begin, meaning to say no, I'm going out, but a moment later I remember the whole 'completely broke' thing. “Oh, cool,” I finish instead. “Okay.”

Out we go, into the brightness of the corridor. We both pause, stunned by the light, and then as one start walking towards the bridge over to the Centre, pretending that our eyes don't hurt.

“How's your haunter?” he asks.

I do feel a little bad then. He remembers. People don't remember unless they care.

“She's okay, I think,” I reply. “Tired. Mostly back in her usual shape, though. Dr Spearing says she'll be okay, but they're doing more tests.” Come on, Morty. Reciprocate. “What about your gastly?”

“Still slowed down.” He starts chewing the edge of his thumbnail, apparently without realising. “Dr Spearing says he'll get better, but it's going to take a while. There's this weird black drowzee? From Bulgaria, I think she said it was. It's doing hypnotherapy with him and he's terrified of it.”

“Oh.” His case just seems to get weirder and weirder. “Uh … sorry?”

Eusine shrugs.

“Think he's getting used to it. I mean, he better, he's got to stay here a couple of weeks.”

He sounds like it's an imposition. Like he has a home he wants to get back to.

“Same with Roddy,” I say, trying to ignore it. “At least it's right next to the Centre.”

“Yeah.” He sighs. “Not really what I had in mind for my trainer journey, though.”

“What? You're still on your journey?”

“Yep.” We go around the corner, part temporarily to allow a woman in a wheelchair to pass with her ponyta. “I know, I'm late to the party, but Kanto was weird five years ago. Those Team Brume guys and that poison fog?”

I nod. They didn't really cross the border at all – why would they? There's nothing here, even for the likes of them – but Kantan news tends to be Johtonian news too.

“And then, you know, I had school, there wasn't really a good time … anyway, we all figured I'd better do it now before I ended up putting it off forever. Grandpa's idea to come to Johto. Money goes further here.”

“Right.” Keeping my voice neutral. “How's it going?”

“It isn't, yet. I got off the train from Saffron last week.”

Last week. Wow. Imagine that: start your trainer journey and immediately have your partner fall sick. If that had happened to me back when I was eleven, that would have pretty much destroyed me.

“Oh, man,” I say. “Sorry. Rough start.”

“It's fine.” He scowls. “Wait. No. It's not fine, but … but you know what I mean.”

I find myself laughing, though not in a way that sounds very happy.

“Yeah,” I reply. “I do.”

Eusine gives me a sidelong look, something sharp revealing itself for an instant beneath his hapless good humour. For some reason I think of a dagger glimpsed momentarily beneath the sweep of a velvet cape, and have to suppress a shiver.

“Yeah?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I say.

He doesn't ask anything else.

This suits me just fine.