It was night when Nozomi awoke, the moon covered partially by the clouds. She could see it shining through them directly above her. She sat up, feeling dirt under her fingertips. It startled her, but she wasn't sure why. What had she been expecting? Something softer, maybe, like clean sheets.
She was sitting in a pumpkin patch.
"Okay, then," Nozomi said out loud, her voice coming out a little slurred. "Um."
There was another source of light besides the moon, and it took her a little while to realize where it was coming from. "Oh. I'm glowing." Standing up, Nozomi brushed dirt from her skirt and back. It was nice to be able to see, but she wasn't certain where she was, and she was currently shining brightly enough for any predators to pick her out.
Predators? That thought startled her, and she watched as her hand took on a brighter glow. Responding to her mental state, perhaps. Nozomi took several deep breaths, willing herself to be calm. Slowly, the glow dimmed until she was barely giving off any light at all.
She wasn't sure how she had come to be there, or where she had been previously. She didn't remember anything at all, for that matter, except her name, which she didn't particularly like. Perhaps she'd pick a new one.
She began to walk, stepping gingerly around the pumpkins. She knew, although she wasn't sure how, that she didn't have all that far to go. Sure enough, there was a figure standing near the top of the hill, their back turned.
"Hello," Nozomi called, breaking into a run to close the gap. She didn't realize she was hovering a few inches above the ground until she looked down, at which point she wiggled her feet in the air until they touched the dirt again.
The stranger turned - a woman. She wore a long cloak in rich navy blue, and her hair was also long and blue, although a slightly lighter shade.
"Y-yy-you're aw-awake." The woman spoke with a breathy, choppy stammer, but there was nothing in her posture that hinted at any kind of nervousness. A speech defect, not shyness, then.
"Were you watching me sleep?" It wasn't what Nozomi had meant to say, but it came out nonetheless.
The woman nodded. "I-I wa-wa-was con-concerned. Y...yy..." A frustrated expression passed over her face and she took a deep breath, continuing after a few moments. "Yy-you were there a-a lonn... long time."
"Ah... you don't know who I am, do you?" Nozomi was, for a moment, hopeful.
Then the woman shook her head. "You d-died. Yy-you're a-a-a ... ghh... ghost, n-noww."
Nozomi nodded, slowly. She wasn't sure how to feel about that. "Could you do me a favor?" She was calm, perhaps unnaturally so.
The woman looked at her inquisitively.
"I'd like a new name, if that's alright. I've got this name in my head, Nozomi Denrei, and I think it's mine, but it feels... wrong."
"A nn-name..." The woman paced around Nozomi, examining her from head to toe. After a moment, she reached out, gently removing something that Nozomi had been wearing around her neck: a rectangle of plastic holding a white card; a string threaded through two holes in the card. Nozomi looked down, blinking; she had barely thought twice about her own clothing since waking up. "Estel Hh... Herald?" said the woman. "Will that do?"
The ghost nodded. "I think I like it."
"A-as you hh-h-have giv-given me your nn-name..." She bowed; the card she had taken disappeared into the folds of her cloak. "I-I shh-sh-shall..." The woman cut the sentence short, her annoyance visible on her face. "Liruna Ashf-ff-Ashfell. Would yy-y-you like... so-so-somewhere to st-stay?"
-
That somewhere was a bed and breakfast, and the name of the bed and breakfast was the Cat's Cradle. Estel had settled into the attic room, a cozy, creaky space which suited her just fine. Estel had learned in the first few days that she had no gift for cooking, but she was able to clean rooms and make herself useful running small errands. She had also learned which rooms not to clean, which rooms not to enter without a helmet and other protective gear, and how to throw live fish into the tank on the ground floor without making eye contact with anything in the water.
There was something missing, though.
Stretched out on her bed, Estel sorted through several school application forms, filling out parts she understood and leaving blank the parts she didn't, which was most of them. She could ask Liruna for help later. It was Amityville she wanted to go to. It had the best reviews, it had the best reputation... and also, when she had shuffled the papers with her eyes shut, the application form for Amityville had come out on top. To her, that was practically fate.
She just had to be accepted.