Maybe Roza had the answer. Maybe this pain wasn’t for nothing. Maybe I just needed to mold it into something beautiful.
After a moment she let go of my hands, patted them, and sat back. “My goodness. It’s going to be time for cocktails soon. Why don’t you go freshen up.” She got to her feet, then waited expectantly, looking down at me.
Startled, I stood and followed her to the red door.
“Tell me one more thing.” Roza paused, her hand on the doorknob. “At the bar that night… when you tried to talk to her. When she practically spit at you.” Her voice was mild but in the dim light of the entranceway, her eyes glowed like a cat’s. “Did you…？”
Did you push her?
The answer had not only been locked in the basement, but buried deep under the floor. I hadn’t brought it out and looked at it properly since that night.
Don’t touch me. Wren had jerked back from me, already much too close to the step, her pencil-thin heels only inches away. And I registered the step, didn’t I? I knew what would happen. And yet a deep rage reared, bubbling up into my right arm. Something took over my body, something primitive, lashing out from a place of complete power-lessness.
I’d reached out again, my thumb pressing firmly into her upper arm, my fingers curling loosely, of no real use when she started to fall backwards.
I’d instantly regretted it. The horror at the sight of her blood was connected to the horror at myself, that I was capable of such violence.
I’d waited for the message from Wren, directly or through a disgusted friend. That it was my fault, I’d done it, I’d pushed her. But no one ever said anything. It was more like they just edged away from me, feeling rather than knowing there was something rotten in my core.
I’d been ready to take the small, secret act to my grave.
But now, returning Roza’s clear gaze, I nodded.
With a satisfied smile, she opened the door. Maybe I was dazed from the Unicum, or reeling from the relief in spilling an unshareable secret—but in that moment, Roza looked resplendent, radiant, a gleaming angel descended from on high. “Good luck, my little spider.” She squeezed my shoulder as I passed through, then shut the door behind me.
Back in my room, I sat at the desk, watching the sun lowering in the sky. My brain still buzzed, my mind moving through dark, tangled currents.
Roza had seen the ugliest side of me, one that I myself was afraid to look at. More than that, she wanted to see it. She drew it out of me.
I couldn’t leave. Not when my idol was the only one who truly accepted me.
Roza had given me the key. You need only reach out to the pain and grab it, use it. I remembered my story, the one Ursula had sent to Roza, about two little girls in a thick and tangled wood, wandering into a different time, a different place. Turning at the sound of something lurching towards them in the dark.
It hadn’t been made up. It was a real experience. A traumatizing event that led to my best work so far: the short story that had given me entrance to Blackbriar.
I imagined Daphne, eyes blank, scribbling away at a canvas, paint spotting her nude, gaunt body like blood.
I opened the laptop and the screen sprang to life. I opened my latest Word doc, the one I’d saved as The Great Commission. Not a bad title, even though the document was currently blank. Slowly, and then with increasing speed, I started to type.
PART TWO The Estate
Excerpt from The Great Commission Daphne met her first ghost when she was twelve years old.
She and her younger sister Grace slept in the tiny room at the back of the apartment. Normally if she woke at night, having to use the chamber pot, she’d be comforted by the noise of the city that continued, albeit in a subdued state, outside: a carriage clacking by on the street below, two drunks yelling at each other, their voices enraged warbles.
But this night, something was different. When Daphne woke it was completely silent.
Even Grace, who normally snored like a horse, was still, turned away, her spine pressed into Daphne’s back. The tiny window was covered by a piece of thick burlap, making the room pitch-black. Daphne sleepily wondered what had woken her up.
Then she heard it.
Footsteps in the hall, unnaturally loud, as if someone was walking in steel-toed boots. They were slow, careful. Daphne knew the sounds of her father and brothers—all slight men who walked with a chipper shuffle. Had someone gotten into their home?
The footsteps stopped—directly in front of the door.
The remnants of sleep scattered as terror bloomed in Daphne’s chest. Who was standing there? But nothing happened. She must have dreamed it, or it had just been the random sounds of the old wooden building.
Then: a sharp creak. The innocuous sound made her suck in her breath.
The doorknob was turning.
Daphne clutched the blankets to her throat, listening to the unending squeal. Finally the door began to open, with a sick brushing sound across the wood floor.
Daphne’s heart thudded. Could one of her brothers be playing a joke on her?
Sit up. Turn on the light.
But she couldn’t. That in itself flooded her with fear.
The footsteps entered the dark room. Daphne felt by turns nauseous and terrified as they made their way towards her, the floorboards groaning underneath the weight.
Scream! Cry out! Do anything!
But still she lay there, fingers cramped around the covers, head turned towards the horrific sounds like a flower trained on the sun.
It came closer. Fifteen feet away. Ten feet. Five.
Then, by the side of the bed, it stopped. Daphne stared at the blackness where it stood, straining with wide eyes. She could feel it, solid and real. She could sense its stare.
But nothing else happened, and the longer she stared, the more she started to doubt herself. It was dead silent—no breath but her own. Could she have imagined it? Maybe it was the remainders of a nightmare, still spinning through her wakefulness?
More time passed. Incrementally, Daphne’s body began to relax. Finally, she was able to unclamp her fingers from the covers. The dark room was still impenetrable, but she was no longer certain that a creature stood above her. In fact, the longer she lay there, the more she started to feel ridiculous. A crow cawed outside. The sound broke the spell. Soon it would be dawn. She reached out an unsteady hand, fingers finding the matches on the crate. Half sitting, she swept a match and held it to the wick of the oil lamp, which whooshed into reassuring light.
But in the very same instant that the light gave her a flush of calm, she saw it.
Horror crashed over her like a tidal wave.
It was still there.
Not it: she. The lamplight showed muddy and decaying flesh, topped by bulbous red eyes. It was hard to tell her age, given the state of decomposition. Her breasts were two gelatinous mountains, chunky and melting, only one wizened nipple still attached.
The rank smell of rotting organs unleashed itself over Daphne.
The woman’s nose had fallen off, but her gummy mouth was wide in a silent scream.
Blank panic overtook Daphne and she screamed too.
Chapter 13
“Darling.” Roza flung down the piece of paper. “No. Listen, I don’t want to be an asshole. But this is the most important page of the entire book. Do you understand?”
Wren scribbled dutifully in her notebook, her expression stony.
We were back in the library for the second afternoon meeting. The night before, still slightly drunk on Unicum, I’d madly written 3,000 words, lost in the throes of inspiration. When I’d stopped, I’d realized I’d completely missed dinner. I’d thrown open my door to find a covered tray right outside. I’d printed the pages, slipped them under Roza’s door, and then feasted on the meal while poring over the books I’d brought up from the library.