Corrine spoke to the spirits on days like this.
Offset ones, finding their way between schedules, and nicking the time just as well to meet them all gently. Days like parasites. Days like worms, nibbling at the topsoil but not enough to make you slip, and then the eggs are all rolling and rotten and the sky is overcast as it remarks on your misfortune; glib.
Those were the tasteful ones, at least, and the choice of company would have you keen for it. Keen, were you not Corrine. Seeking, not by coincidence of the snag but secretly hopeful for it. Saw the clouds over the hills and felt it, even, and were that it she'd be set, but there's formality to consider. In concept, a long and unforgiving invitation written and litigated centuries before she had ever thought of being born.
In practice, a little something like this:
Cut your hand across, and don't fear blood flowing,
strike the match and catch the gift alight,
speak to the wind in a breath full of toxins,
and beckon to the shapes that hear;
Then, maybe, your father who has yet quite to pass will visit you in spirit. That, and the hopes of your mother, too, and you'll pull along those threads and invite their questions of who you've slept with (in euphemistic terms), or how the job search is going, and so on. The interrogation will be long, and draw from you many breaths, but on that wind, as the rumble of thunder escapes you in the preening of your down and dirty feathers, maybe, just maybe, you'll see the face of a man lost to the beyond and dive upon his desperately parting memory. Sweeping through as a yawning breeze,
"What business do you have in a graveyard so late?"
"Business of yours, you've left shit undone."
"No need to be crass. Ach- to think my bones would ache when I didn't have them anymore."
"The pain's the pain you've left behind. Serves you right, I'd say, but it's not mine to judge."
"And who would you be?"
"Doesn't matter-"
Loose droplets begin to fall in gentle patter,
"-your sorry lot want theirs from yours."
"Is that so?"
They threaten what loose wisps you've gathered, less a net than jumbled cord.
"The code to the storage locker."
The sigh is a knot.
"They should know."
"Should know?"
"Should know, and if they don't- well."
"Left behind a riddle? Something in the will?"
"They didn't show it to you?"
Tightening.
"Not a private investigator if that's what you're thinking this is."
"Of course, no…"
Loose like you're about to fall.
"…it doesn't serve to be a romantic these days, does it?"
And Corrine laughs a fake laugh, like she often does.
"No."
And the day ends with a code in her hands, and a storage locker broken into. A few weeks later the siblings might find it empty, but she'll be long gone. After all, she had money to spend and too many places she couldn't go.