A Dead Man's Intuition

I was silent for a moment.

"Well, that's stupid," I said. "Magic is useful."

Then again, the magic I knew of wasn't exactly like healing wounds. Asmira, Nathaniel and I all had magical abilities that weren't exactly helpful for anyone other than us. Nikko could go through things. Megara could feel emotions, and Eddie could change his age. Those were only useful in a tense situation, not in day-to-day life.

"Something must have happened," I guessed. "It wouldn't become illegal without a reason."

“There was a reason,” James replied. “We call it the calamity, but it was a lot of things. 100 years ago, before I was born, there were numerous magically sourced natural disasters that left our world a disaster. The short of it is that magic users took the blame. Something about angering the magic at the heart of Nye, and it being against our nature. Mages became the scapegoat for a lot of the world’s anger... at least, for humans.”

I frowned.

I wasn't sure what I had been expecting, but that hadn't been it. It almost reminded me of something from my world - not the one I traveled with Natty boy and Asmira, but the one that I was originally from.

"Something like that happened in my world," I said. "We called it the Problem instead - which really wasn't all that creative, seeing that it was a problem for the living part of the population. Ghosts kept popping up everywhere. No one really blamed any person in particular, but it completely changed how the world worked."

James listened, but he got caught on the word "ghost."

"Wait... ghosts are real in your world? Like, the spirits of people who've passed on?"

I smirked.

"They are," I said. "You're talking to one right now."

I faltered.

"...Well, I was one," I corrected. "I tried passing on, but I ended up on the world I came from before this one instead. I couldn't possess people before, but I could break things and make the air cold. I also could make people paralyzed from fear, but it would have been a little excessive to do it to Butch earlier."

James felt like, of all things, Skull being a ghost should've been easier to digest than it currently was. Maybe it was the fact that he had no grid for what ghosts were actually like or that he'd never seen or met one before, but it was just a little difficult to imagine.

He let out a weak, mirthless laugh.

"It seems like you have a lot of magical abilities."

"I do," I agreed, looking down at my hand. I didn't add that my powers were limited - if I used them too much, I'd end up like I had when I was possessing Oliver. And even before then, I hadn't exactly been able to use my powers; being stuck in a jar did limit things.

"You're technically only supposed to get one," I said, "after you die. Not the ghost part - the ending up on a second world part. But I think the world let it slide with me. I was the strongest type of ghost out there. Making me lose those powers would be boring."

James drew his brows together and looked over at Skull, squinting. Not everyone out there was gifted with that much magic. That made Skull unique, sure-

“But surely your powers have limits though, right?”

I faltered - my bravado lost.

"...They didn't before," I said, my answer coming out more like a mumble than anything else. "When I was ghost, I didn't have any limits on my powers. They could just be...restricted a...little by other people."

James stared at Skull.

“But now?”

I stared into the flames of the fire, feeling their heat dancing across my cheeks.

"...They have limits," I admitted. I didn't want to advertise them most of the time, but it was hard ignoring the question when James was asking it directly. I couldn't just change the subject. "...That's what happened earlier. With Butch."

He blinked slowly, watching Skull’s face redden. Having weaknesses shouldn’t be so shameful, but James knew to say so aloud would only make him feel like a hypocrite, because it wasn’t like he believed that for himself.

“What exactly happened that had to do with your limits?”

I took a deep breath.

"The body I was possessing kicked me out," I finally said.

I paused for a moment, staring into the flames.

"...It happens when I'm in my own body, too," I added.

James’s eyes widened in realization.

“So that’s what was happening!” He had been so, so confused.

"...You don't have to sound so happy about it," I muttered.

I finally looked up from the fire, instead deciding I'd rather stare at a tree across from it. "It's not even like I got to use my powers much before I ended up like this - I seriously used them twice. I was the most powerful kind of ghost, and I couldn't even haunt people like I was supposed to!"