Chapter Text
Charlie knew she was named after someone big and important. Daddy had told her before. It changed slightly every time, though. Just enough to keep her interested. The man she was named after was named Charles, with people calling him Charlie. She pointed out, as her kindergarten teacher had taught her, that they had the same number of letters. Daddy smiled briefly, and nodded. She asked why he had a nickname if it was just the same number of letters, and he'd shrugged, saying simply, "Don't know. Maybe if you find him, you can ask him."
That's right. Daddy had never really known his daddy. All he had was guesses. He was good at making guesses. She'd tried to imagine him as Daddy described him: a war hero, fighting the bad guys across the ocean. Or a government official, with a neatly pressed suit and a too-white smile, saying things she didn't understand. Or maybe he was more like Daddy. Just... normal. Maybe soft like Dad, strong like Mom. All the different scenarios ran through her head, and it excited her. Almost too much. She'd ask Daddy over and over if he knew anymore, but the name and the ideas were it. Nothing more.
But kindergarten wasn't the kind of place you found out information about lost family, was it?
In kindergarten, at the school around the bend, her teacher read them stories, and gave them snacks, and taught them how to add and subtract. She taught them how to read and recite the alphabet. Nothing about where to start looking at your family history.
It drove her crazy. And it wasn't like her dumb five year old brother, Mason, could understand. He just knew that he was getting ideas about the world and would be joining his big sister in school next year. So maybe it wasn't surprising when she began to see... him.
A strange man, dressed in an equally strange uniform. It looked like the classic pictures of army men that she had sometimes seen. He was always smoking a cigarette. He had eyes like Daddy, and a yellowed smile. She tried to talk to him, but he never talked back, and he always had this ghostly aura about him. But he was very real, to her. She could never touch him, though. Charlie brought him up one night at the dinner table.
"I made a friend today!" she proclaimed.
Daddy looked over, with tired, but interested eyes, speaking in his gravelly, low tone, "You did?"
"Mhm!" She shoveled a forkful of food into her mouth, prompting Dad to remind her to swallow before speaking, "Sorry, Dad."
Mom looked over, interested in this new friend, "What's their name, Charlie? Are they in your class?"
Well, now she was stuck. She didn't know her new friend's name, did she? He'd never said anything about himself, or... anything at all, really. "They... they didn't tell me their name. I just know we're friends now."
"Well, Charlie," Mom smiled, "Knowing someone's name is an important part of being friends. They know your name, right?"
"Mhm!"
"So why shouldn't you know their's?"
An interesting thought. Daddy nodded in agreement, "Find out their name. Then you're really friends."
Charlie's eyes widened, and she nodded eagerly. She would find out the ghost's name. One way or another.
That night, after Daddy had left her room, leaving the door open a crack, and gone to bed himself, Charlie sat up, waiting for her parents' bedroom door to shut. Success. She looked around, waiting for the ghost man. It was late. Her eyes were barely open. But she would find out his name. She waited, and waited, until the ghost man finally appeared, at the foot of her bed, smoking a Marlboro. Grandma Jupiter never smoked those. Said they were nasty.
Charlie thought the smoke was nasty in general. Not that Grandma Jupiter would ever listen to her.
He turned, and looked at her. She wasn't afraid at all. He turned back away only to blow smoke out of his mouth, before coughing and inhaling more. Seemed counterproductive, in her opinion. She watched, with her sleepy eyes, and asked, "What's your name, mister?"
The soldier ghost shook his head, finally speaking in a gravelly voice like Daddy's, "What's it t' you?"
"I dunno. You seem pretty interesting."
"Not really," he turned away and exhaled again, dropping the ghost cigarette and extinguishing it, "Jus' a soldier. Nothin' much t' me."
"But you have a name, right?" She asked again.
He grinned, "Yeah. I have one. So do you. Does it matter? No." Charlie grimaced as the ghost-man laughed. He had a quiet, raspy, laugh. Like Daddy. His smile was crooked, "Tell ya what, kid. You like a good mystery, right?" She nodded eagerly, and he continued, "Well, this is yer mystery, right here. Find out my name. It shouldn't be hard."
Charlie sat there a moment, before speaking slowly, "But... if I don't know who you are... where do I start?"
"Well," the soldier put a hand on his knee, "That's the thing. I'll be givin' ya my own little hints. You-" he poked her on the nose with a spectral finger, "-just gotta figure out the rest." Charlie nodded, and the soldier laughed and vanished, leaving her in her bedroom, her brother fast asleep in the other bed. He'd be giving her hints? Fun! A new game! She liked games! It all started tomorrow, she guessed. So, she laid back down, and dreamed of men in army fatigues and Marlboro cigarettes, laughing their raspy laughs.