Spectral

When reason fails, the devil helps!

⸺Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky.

one.

November, 1910.

It was eight o’clock on a Thursday evening in the middle of November, and Francis Lloyd Burns’ bride was lying dead on his silken bedsheets.

He stood and looked down at her without pity. Her eyes were still open, but they were glassy and there was a milky blurred quality to them, as if she had been suffering from severe cataracts at a young age. A cold, pale shadow seemed to have spread across her skin, touched by Death’s hand. She was strangely beautiful in death, something Francis couldn’t quite explain. Lovely. Sorrowful.

It had happened so quickly. A stifled cry; her soul rushing past him to the stars. He was still half-convinced that those milky green eyes would clear suddenly and she would sit right back up, laugh, and they would go back down to the lobby where the wedding guests mingled and wondered why they had disappeared. He could imagine his mother smiling and waving them off impatiently. Young love, she’d say. She had no idea.

A knock came at the door. Francis’ head jerked up. “Who is it?” he asked, and his voice was hoarse, as if he hadn’t spoken in months.

“Francis?” It was his mother, speaking of the devil. “Francis, everyone’s wondering where you’ve gone. Can you come down?”

“Yes,” he answered.

“Where’s Dolly?”

He looked down at the body. “She’s in the bathroom,” he said, the lie slipping from his lips easily. It didn’t catch in his mouth, didn’t come out jumbled on his tongue. It stole through the gaps in his teeth and reached his mother’s ears, and she believed him without a second thought. Of course she did. He was her son.

“Well, come down as soon as you can,” she said. He could hear her smile. He couldn’t wait for her to leave.

“All right,” he said, and listened to the faint patter of her steps down the hall. He felt like a caged animal, pacing the length of his captivity and looking through the bars at freedom, which was so close yet so far away.

Francis shook his head to clear it. Now all he had to do was put the final wheels of his plan in motion, and he could walk away with an award-winning performance. I ought to be on the stage, he thought wryly as he lifted the body into his arms. Even in death, she was so light.

He walked with the body into the adjoining bathroom. His reflection seemed to flash a thousand times in the white tiles.

He deposited the body on the floor near the sink. It slid so easily from his arms, as if it was merely a ghost of the girl he’d once loved. Or thought he’d loved. Maybe he had loved her, maybe he hadn’t. Everything seemed so far away, like he was grasping at the memory of a dream, a rustling echo just beyond his reach. Yes . . . that was what all this was. A dream. He’d wake up and Dolores would be beside him, looking at him with her round green eyes, and they’d never go to the church and they wouldn’t say their vows, they would escape to Europe—for she had always wanted to go to Paris—or South America and see the world. He’d wake up and begin the day again.

Once again, Francis shook his head. He needed to stay calm, stay focused. Already his thoughts were slipping away, tangling with each other. Distractions. There was no use in wishing away the truth. It was better this way. Wasn’t it?

Francis bent over the sink and turned on a faucet, splashing cold water on his face. His skin felt very hot to the touch. Then he straightened and looked into the mirror. His eyes were dark and empty. He wasn’t sure what that meant.

The sink was still running, a constant, steady flow of water. He watched it circle round the drain before waltzing down the pipes. He turned the handle back. A drop still clung to the faucet, then fell as if in slow motion. The sound was magnified in the silent room. In this surreal haze, he thought it looked like a teardrop.

two.

Her first thought was that she felt curiously light. Everything seemed dimmed and indistinct; somehow the world had become blurred and unfamiliar. As if she were looking through an opaque fog. Where was she? Where was Francis?

I must be dreaming, she thought. I’m dreaming, and I’ll wake up and Francis will be beside me, looking up at me with his hazel eyes . . .

Yes, Dolores Francine Winthrop decided, she was simply dreaming.

The fog around her began to clear, revealing white tiles and crystal faucets, a porcelain cage. She was in the bathroom. Why was there fog in the bathroom? Perhaps the steam from hot water. Had she been taking a bath? Her head was dazed, heavy with mist. She got to her feet and walked into the bedroom. Nothing seemed to make sense.

“Francis?” she called. Her voice was muffled in her ears, as if she were underwater. There was no response. She tried again. Nothing.

She began to wonder if she had hit her head. Maybe she had tripped over the hem of her dress . . . She looked down at her wedding gown. It was so intricate, so delicate. Perfect, Francis’ mother had declared. And it was perfect. Dolores had loved her wedding dress. But now the generous sleeves, the laced bodice and the silk skirt seemed to suffocate her. The flaws crawled across her skin, a sensation akin to a thousand tiny spiders scuttling over her body.

Dreaming, dreaming, dreaming. She wrenched open the room door. Or tried to. It wouldn’t open. Every time she put her hand on the knob, she would simply pass right through it. She tried again. And again. But each time she did so it only validated the little idea that had begun to form in the back of her mind.

She looked over her shoulder. Something was visible beyond the doorframe of the bathroom. She approached, and stopped in her tracks.

“Dead.” She stared at her own body. “I’m dead . . .”

Dolores looked down at her hands. They seemed perfectly normal. Everything seemed perfectly normal. But she was like a fish swimming against a current, fighting back and losing every time. She was dead. She was dead. She was dead. It was a mantra running through her head like a recording she couldn’t turn off, a voice she couldn’t silence.

How? The little voice of rationality came to life in her brain. How did you die? As if on cue, a wisp of smoke drifted across the room and came to a halt over the bed. She could see something inside it, swirling and churning. Answers. She leaned forward, terrified in her curiosity.

A scene began to play out before her, on the bed. A struggle, a last moment of despair. Her eyes, wide and horrified . . . A man, his back turned to her. His hair was dark and disheveled. Like feathers. A man she recognized instantly.

And suddenly—as naturally as the pieces of a puzzle fitting together—everything made sense.

“Francis,” she breathed. “My God.”

The vision vanished with a soft whoosh. Dolores fell back on her heels. Everything was coming back to her: the lunch—it had to be mushrooms, she was fatally allergic to mushrooms. He must have disguised them in the stroganoff. It was so terribly simple, so horribly easy. He had brought her to her room when she said she wasn’t feeling well, then he had finished the job with a silk pillow. She had slept upon those sheets, her head upon those very pillows, never knowing that they would later kill her.

How could it be possible? Francis had loved her—hadn’t he? Loved her enough to marry her? She recalled every little moment that had passed between them, the little red carnations he’d planted around her room, the letters he’d written, the pictures he’d sketched. And now—she was dead, and by his hand! Had it all meant nothing? Had it all been leading to one thing—her death?

Dolores’ mind was working like a machine. She could almost hear the whirring of the wheels and gears—or was it her heartbeat, the blood pulsing rapidly through her ears? Suddenly she realized—her heart had stopped. She had no pulse. Her hands felt cold to the touch.

It’s because you’re dead, she told herself harshly. You’re dead and gone and this must be some kind of heaven.

But what kind of heaven was this if she had to keep looking at her body, sprawled on the bathroom floor in the Hotel Alabaster?

She turned on her heel and strode right through the door, out of the room. The hem of her wedding dress grazed her ankles, but she could hardly feel it anymore. A strange numbness had begun to spread throughout her body, as if she was fading away even when she felt so real. She was almost grateful for that absence of feeling—this was too much, too soon, and she didn’t think she could take any more of it.

Along the hallway the lamps flickered in their iron brackets, casting strange shadows across the walls. She noticed that her own was absent. The murmur of voices from the lobby floated around the hall and past her, through her. It was like she wasn’t really there. Like she’d never been there at all.

Dolores came to a halt at the topmost stair. She felt the flutter of her veil against her head, the long tear in her dress. She saw everyone, but nobody saw her.

And then—there he was! A dark head bobbing through the crowd. She knew everything in him at that moment, could see his memories of her, of days past, could feel the steady pound of his heart in his throat, the itch and ache in his hands.

Anger suddenly took over the fear, a light-headed sort of anger, pulsing through her veins and closing off the rational part of her brain. She wanted to charge down the stairs, hook her hands around his throat and squeeze the life out of him. She felt as if she could fly, borne aloft on the scarlet wings of vengeance. She could do anything: release everything inside her if only to kill this one man.

Never before had Dolores Winthrop felt such a rush. In that moment, she hated Francis more than she’d hated any other person she had ever known. She wanted to rip him apart, limb from limb, until finally she took his heart in her hands and flung it away, as he’d done to her own. She wanted to feel his flesh and blood, she wanted to carve her name on his dead black heart. And yet—it wasn’t enough to see him dead. She wanted to see him brought low, wounded and betrayed, the way he had her. She wanted to watch him suffer.

She saw Francis in a way she had never seen him before: as something sick and twisted, something to be abhorred. He had been dark and unfathomable when she was alive, but now she could see him for what he truly was. Those carved porcelain features were no longer beautiful– they were terrible, mocking, evidence of her own grievous folly. And yet something about him was alluring in the way that death was alluring—he was so dangerous, but so fascinating.

Dolores was not fooled.

She would never be fooled again.

( . . . Not that it mattered, anyway.)

When it all became too much, she turned away. The scent of flowers and the acrid tang of smoke hung in the air, but she could not smell it. Death had numbed her senses, but not her pain. She could see mounds of white carnations spilling over the banisters. The bouquet of poppies he had given her just that morning. Lilies of the valley in delicate vases. Peonies and roses the color of blood hung on the walls in bunches. It all seemed too ironic. Just moments before she had been here, among the sweet scent of the flowers, but now she was . . . What was she? A phantom, a spirit, a haunted soul?

Lost.

Dead.

Dolores’ skin crawled. She wanted out of this place, but she had no idea where she could go. The memory of Francis Lloyd Burns’ treachery would follow her forever, wherever she went. So, she would stay here! It was safe in this hotel and besides the wedding—her wedding—taking place in the lower rooms there was nothing that could hurt her anymore. They would all be gone soon. This night had taught her that.

Everything seemed so quiet, too quiet. Dolores could feel the silence settling deep into her bones. It was visceral, something so tangible she felt she could reach out and grab it. There, in that crowded hotel lobby, Dolores Francine Winthrop made a solemn vow. She would get her revenge on Francis, and leave nothing in her wake. She would take from him everything he had taken from her.

And she would start with his life.

Interlude⸺Reverie.

It matters not how strait the gate, / How charged with punishments the scroll, / I am the master of my fate: / I am the captain of my soul.

⸺Invictus, William Ernest Henley.

May, one year earlier.

They had met in the thick of a restless spring, at a lovely house near the sea in Maine. Dolores recalled children scurrying around the house and tracking sand on the carpets, voices clamoring well into the evenings, and the fog, engulfing the cliff house in the early hours of the morning when nobody but Dolores was awake. She would sit in the window alcove, leaning her head against the glass, and watch the waves crashing against the rocks. The only one who liked to watch the waves with her was Francis. When he thought she wasn’t looking, he used to stare at the wonder on her face, the white gleam of the moon in her eyes.

Those were the halcyon days, when the air was cool and the exhilaration high. Dolores had been eighteen then, dark-haired and quiet. Her parents had doted on her, their beloved only child, and showered gifts and indulgences upon her from the moment she’d been born. They hadn’t been able to have any more children, for another birth would have called in the stroke of death and taken her mother away.

Dolores spent her days by the sea traversing the beach. This morning, she unlaced her boots and peeled off her stockings, then enjoyed the feeling of damp white sand between her toes. She liked to feel things. Holding up the hem of her dress, she ran into the surf, where the brisk water came up to her ankles. She continued in this vein for quite a while, teasing and taunting the waves as they tried to catch her and pull her into the current, reveling in the risk.

She wondered if she was in love.

Since Francis had arrived, she hadn’t been able to think clearly. Whenever she caught even the barest glimpse of him, there came a pain so acute she felt it in her bones, her stomach

pulling itself into taut knots. It suffused her with desperation, like she was running out of time. She wondered if this was love, and if it was, why did it hurt so much?

⸺⸺

Francis was tired. Tired of wishing he could be the man he wasn’t. Beautiful, and good– like Dolores. There was something devilish in his mind, whirling through his thoughts even in sleep. His dreams were plagued by ghosts—whether real or imagined, he wasn’t sure. He only knew they whispered to him, pointed to his father (and his malicious black eyes) and his father before him (muttering to a blank wall with an uncanny stare).

Every night, Francis prayed to false gods for a cure to ease his pain. And perhaps he’d found one in Dolores.

The second he saw her, he wanted to draw her near, feel the beat and pulse of her heart in the lovely curve of her neck. Everything about her was lovely, but drawn over it was a veil of sorrow that he wished to fathom. The first moment he laid his eyes upon her, he was struck by the restless way she moved, the way her gaze leapt from one thing to the next.

She was in the sunroom, reading by the window. He walked down the hall, each step bringing him closer and closer to his fate. Her forehead leant against the window as she stared at the scene below: the waves rushing onto the sand, James helping Lydia and Jude rebuild their rock tower for the seventh time. Francis didn’t care for them. He only cared for her.

“Miss Winthrop,” he said from the doorway.

She looked around, pulled from her reverie. Her voice was breathless. “Francis! What are you—?”

“Is your book amusing?” he asked. “You were smiling just now.”

Her lips curved dreamily. “It’s wonderful,” she replied. In the pale periwinkle lace of her dress, and as the late evening sun cascaded through the window, kissing her skin, she looked angelic. Francis watched her, simply fascinated by the way she lived. Her mind seemed so pure, cloaked in the sweet perfume that is innocence.

She placed her feet on the ground as if preparing to stand. “My middle name is Francine,” she told him. “Did you know that?”

“I didn’t,” he said. She’s meant for me, he thought, in a sudden, fierce stroke. He took a step closer. “Francine is a pretty name.”

“Thank you. My mother chose it.”

The room was bathed in orange, slightly shadowed by a coming storm as clouds advanced over the horizon. Francis moved closer still. She rose to her feet. “Francine, Francis,” she said, her voice quiet. “They’re very similar . . .”

The words trailed off into oblivion. Her eyes darted across his face, desperately riveted by the smoothness of his features, the smile reflected in his eyes. His skin was scattered with light. Dolores stood there, bound by his spell. She memorized him, every inch of him, until he became a blueprint drawn in her mind. The edge of his thumb traced the curve of her cheekbone. She leaned into his touch. It scared her. It thrilled her.

“May I see you alone?” he asked quietly. “Where the others won’t find us?” She nodded, mechanically, as if her head were controlled by puppeteer’s strings. Without thinking, she leaned up and kissed him.

They broke apart, breathless. Francis leaned his forehead against Dolores’. “Tonight,” he whispered. “The edge of the beach.”

⸺⸺

The night was cold, and the waves engulfed the shore, a thin sheath of mist on her skin. Above, the clouds roiled and tangled with each other in a gray horde. Dolores shivered. It felt like a wild, wretched animal was inside her, scratching at the lining of her stomach and seeking the light. She couldn’t tame it if she tried.

She picked her way across the sand. She went past the hollow log the children were using as their fortress, past the Southern Magnolia tree, its blushing blossoms scattered across the sand, past the smooth rock tower on which Jude and Lydia had spent painstaking hours that afternoon.

She found Francis tucked away among the rocks, silhouetted against the tumultuous sky. He looked around as she approached, and rose to his feet, swathed in shadow. “Dolores,” he said softly. “Dolly. You came.”

He handed her a flower. She looked down at it. A red carnation. “My favorite flower,” she whispered. “It’s perfect.”

“Perfect,” he echoed.

“I think I love you.”

A beat passed. Dolores was about to spiral into panic—had she said too much? would he laugh at her? call her a fool?—when he said, “Come away with me.”

“Where?”

“The moon,” he replied, tilting his head up to the sky. “The stars. We’ll see the sun. Together.”

“Together,” Dolores echoed. “Venus, too? And Neptune? And Mercury?”

“I’ll take you all through the universe,” said Francis. He kissed her, a solemn promise (he was built from empty promises and white lies). In that moment, Dolores had prayed for it never to be broken.

three.

On the day of her death, Dolores Francine Winthrop had become too absorbed in the preparations for her wedding to think anything of her possible impending doom. Now, at least, there was no danger of distractions, for she was alone.

So frighteningly alone . . .

Her wrath was like the ocean: it surged with surprising force, before receding and leaving a strain of catharsis in its wake. Currently, Dolores was in the midst of an eerily calm spell, wandering the halls of the Hotel Alabaster and simply absorbing her new confines—the walls, her rage, her fate. She was not physically tired; she supposed that was part of her new ghostly existence, but rather her mind was tired. Exhausted, in fact: she wanted to lay down on a downy feather pillow and sleep for days. Being murdered wreaks havoc on one’s spirit, after all.

As the revelers went, one by one, up to bed, an impenetrable quiet descended upon the hotel. Dolores found it comforting, yet lonely. She couldn’t hold it all in her head. She wished to cry, to scream, to somehow numb this deluge of agony.

I could talk to myself.

No, she would look as if she were going insane. But with the way she was driving herself around in circles, she may as well have been.

No one would see.

That’s right, no one would see. She was forever gone from the world—should she decide to return, she would be hailed as a curse, a torment—should she stay here, her mind would slowly crush itself into little pieces, until she was but a husk of a girl, a faded seashell from that beach where she had seen Francis for the first time.

And yet—she had time. It was all she had, besides herself, and she could hardly trust that.

Halting at the top of the staircase, Dolores sighed. Her breath was the rustling of wind, a sound only she heard as it grappled with the ears of the darkness. Beyond that, silence reigned. Somehow, in the quiet, she felt a tiny measure of her fear ebb away.

“What’s happened to me?” she said.

The answer was silence.

Yes, she was dead. She knew this. Even so, her thoughts were such a tangled mass of chaos; she couldn’t grasp anything. For her, there was no peace of mind, no kind darkness waiting in the void. She had never lost sway over her thoughts before—no, that was a lie. She had lost sway, once. But that complete surrender to the foreign paths of love had been the greatest mistake of her brief life, a thing she couldn’t reconcile quite yet.

As she made her way down the staircase, the world around her nothing but an illusion, Dolores nursed her aching heart. It had ripped itself to pieces over Francis, devoured itself three times over, swallowed the most inane of medicines. No one was coming to save her, for her knight in shining armor had become the villain in this story and she’d be damned if she was going to play damsel in distress.

Dolores would not give her fear to Francis. He did not deserve it. Not from her. So she patched up her heart. She stitched together what she could find: fabric and threads from her gown, petals from dead, shriveled flowers, print from the book on the fireplace mantle, a shard of crystal from the chandelier for a needle.

Only a day before, Dolores had thought of herself as kind, merciful, every piece of her in its rightful place. But Francis’ treachery had erased something inside her, traded that kindness and mercy for a little bit of his despicable wickedness. She could feel his blood, hot through his veins, and hear his heart pounding through her ears. He was with her, a part of her. Because they were linked together by something stronger than hatred, or love. Something stronger and more heated than anything else.

She erected bravado from ivory and painted her banners red with blood. There could be no rest for the wicked, after all.

⸺⸺

All through the following day—her first day as a ghost, how pleasant—Dolores thought of the little moments where things went wrong, but there were too many to count. Francis could be kind and courteous one moment, and the next he was pretending as if she wasn’t there. Perhaps they didn’t have anything to do with the reason why he had murdered her, but they would certainly add to the satisfaction she would gain when she saw him dead.

Dolores planned her revenge meticulously; every little piece put together and every little string tied up. No loose ends could be left along the way. Though there was no danger of anything being traced back to her, she could not shake the methodical routines that had been instilled in her since birth. She began almost as soon as the sun came up—until about eight in the morning, when they found her.

A maid had screamed; her voice cut through the air like a knife. Dolores’ head seemed to split with the sheer force of it, and she knew then it had happened; they had found her. She moved quickly through the gathering toward her hotel room, hidden, ensconced in a bubble of desperation, watching closely as doors slammed open along the hall and the guests crowded around the door.

“What is it?” Francis’ mother, pulling her son along, pushed to the forefront. “What’s happened?”

“Dead—!” The maid’s whisper was quiet, hushed, but it carried all through the room. “She’s dead!”

It echoed, it rippled, a single word passing through each person.

“What?”

“Dead?”

“Who’s dead?”

“It’s Miss Winthrop, Madam,” whispered the terrified maid. “I found her.”

“What do you mean, you found her?” said Dolores’ father, in a voice quaking with fury. His cheeks were florid and flushed. “I don’t understand.”

“I knocked on the door before breakfast,” said Francis, with convincing concern. Lies. He dragged a hand across his face, hiding his eyes from the spectators, fearful in their curiosity. He had even summoned a tear, as though this were some circus act. “She didn’t answer, so I assumed she was asleep.”

Her mother was staring through the open doorway, her eyes round and wide, hands clenched into fists. Dolores’ heart twisted in her chest, painfully, as if someone had taken a knife and driven it into her breast. She kept her eyes on Francis, not wanting to watch a display of her parents’ grief. His face was mostly impassive, but for a moment she thought she saw a flicker of satisfaction across those smooth features as he wiped away a worthless tear. Oh, Francis, she thought desperately. How are you ever going to get away with this? You’re too prideful, too confident in your own twisted abilities.

She stayed and watched as they silently mourned her, as the world shook and fell apart around them.

Her body was gone by the end of the hour.

Dolores had no time to mourn her own demise. She was ready—with fresh resolve—to finish this game that Francis had begun.

People are like candles. They are lit, they dance for a while as pretty red flames, and quite soon the wax is worn down with age. They are kept, carefully watched because at any moment they might become difficult to handle. They have faces of carved wax, pale wood. They are tended, as people are. They cling to the edges of cliffs at precarious angles, about to fall down, down, down . . .

And they are just as easily snuffed out.

Interlude⸺The Eagle’s Prey.

The day Francis realized he wasn’t like everyone else was the same as any other day, but the snow was falling fast and thick like a blanket and he was lagging behind his friends. Hey Francis, they called back at him, hurry up!

I’m coming, he said, and went slower.

His friends stopped several feet ahead of him, staring hard at something on the ground. When he reached them, Francis paused too and looked closely. Gray feathers were strewn across the snow, which was flecked with the deepest red—blood. It looked like someone had scattered a hoard of rubies at the side of the road, dropped carelessly from the window of a passing carriage. He could see a wound among the side of the bird’s crumpled plumage, and its wings were bent and tangled at unnatural angles.

James swiveled away from the bird, retching loudly.

What is that? gasped Albert, who they called “Bertie”.

It’s a chickadee, said Marcus.

It’s dead, Francis told them, as he knelt and prodded the bird’s speckled wing with a thickly-gloved finger. Must’ve been caught by a hawk or an eagle or something.

Disgusting, said his friend Thomas, gagging and turning away. He covered his mouth with his hands, hands which were protected from the bitter Minnesota cold by a pair of knitted mittens his mother had made him. Come on, boys. Let’s get going.

But Francis didn’t follow. Instead he chose to stay behind and examine the dead chickadee, held in suspense by a morbid curiosity. He nudged it with the toe of his boot. He hadn’t ever stumbled upon death like this before. The others saw the chickadee with a boyish interest, fleeting and without real meaning. But Francis saw it differently. He was intrigued by the angle of its wings, the feathers bent and disordered. The unseeing, dead-eyed pupils.

His friends had noticed his absence by now. But did Francis really think of them as friends? He didn’t share with them his deepest desires, his hidden secrets, nothing beyond what he thought they needed to know. Thomas and Marcus and Bertie and James and him, Francis. They were together at school where they sat together and walked home together and that was it. He didn’t expect to see them in the future. He didn’t expect any feelings of affection to blossom in his chest.

When Francis saw his friends he saw the bird. We live to die, he said to the chickadee’s inert, disheveled body, lying in the snow in a pool of its own feathers and blood.

We live to die.

four.

The rest is silence.

⸺Hamlet, William Shakespeare.

Everything was arranged, everything was in its rightful place, and Dolores was prepared for the final battle. Only a week had passed since her death, and though she hadn’t quite come to terms with the strange sadness which had settled into her heart, and irregular bouts of grief which left her exposed to the living eye, she had accepted vengeance. And it would be hers by the end of the day, for the living could only thwart the dead for so long.

Dolores waited near the banisters, hiding herself in shadow; she knew he would be able to see her. Such strong feelings engulfed her when she was in his presence. He had seen her before; she had watched his eyes follow her through a crowd, glancing back over his shoulder with furrowed brows. He was not the only one, of course—others had caught a glimpse of the so-called Dead Bride who haunted the halls of the Hotel Alabaster, the young woman who had died and hadn’t gone to heaven. Some say she was murdered; others suspect she took her own life.

They would see a woman in her wedding dress disappearing around a corner, the hem whipping against the wall; when they looked around there was nobody there. Or they might hear strange tears from a phantom in the walls; or they might see a pale, blue corpse, hidden behind the curtains . . .

Some of the haunting Dolores enjoyed. It was a way to pass the time, and it was amusing to watch the living grasp at things they didn’t, couldn’t, would never understand, such as death. For her, there was no life after death, only a cursed existence.

She became alert as footsteps crossed the carpet in the hall. Looking up, she saw him– Francis Lloyd Burns, in all his black-suited glory. He always dressed impeccably, with dark clothes and hair combed back neatly from his face. Once, she might have loved him for it, but now it disgusted her. Not even the devil could hide his corruption in silk shirts.

This was a haunting that Dolores enjoyed.

She took great pleasure in watching his face change, as he tucked his fear away behind a mask; she still knew it was there. It was potent, like poison hiding in a drink. “Francis,” she whispered in his ear, her voice melting sugar, lilting honey.

He flinched away from her, but his voice remained steady. “Dolores.” He took a step back, alarm flashing through his eyes—until it was gone, and he was just as closed as before. “What do you want?”

She smiled at him. “Why did you do it?”

He hesitated, placing a hand on the carved wooden banister.

Francis had asked himself that question since the idea first broached itself in his mind. He would look up at the ceiling at night and wonder, why had he done it? Because I couldn’t stand the sight of you, the sound of your voice. Because you were so much better than I was, because you were so good. Because I thought you were the remedy, but you never came close. Because, because, because . . .

In the beginning, he had loved her. He couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment when he had stopped loving her. Perhaps, in his own twisted way, he still loved her.

She could read all his thoughts. She felt the world crashing down around them. She could not stop it now; the catalyst had begun. It had begun long before the two of them had crossed paths. It was always beginning.

“You’re a fool, Francis Burns,” she said. “And you shall reap your own rewards.” It was too late. He was already falling, pushed by an invisible hand that was not his own. He had not seen the crease in the carpet, and though he usually saw everything, he had not seen that. More of her tricks? He had thought he could spin his own fate, but instead he had fashioned a house of cards—vulnerable and unsteady. Dolores had toppled the entire thing with her fists, in one clean blow, and he had not seen it. He had not seen anything beyond what she had wanted him to see; he had been perfectly content with that because he thought he was the one in control, the one who had the power. She was right, he was a fool—and it was too late now.

She had never needed to see it; she could simply feel it. That was where they were different. Where he was severed from all life, she lived.

For a moment he thought he heard laughter, but Dolores was not laughing; she was watching him with an empty look on her face, and somehow this was more terrifying than any smile could ever be. Her eyes, too, were vacant but they seemed to blaze with glory, lit by a thousand fires that he could not see. Her triumph was palpable.

His heart was beating a rhythm he could never have thought of. He was falling, falling, down, down, down—there was nothing to cling to. Nothing left for him to hold on to. He felt life slipping away from him, had always felt it leaving, as surely as if someone had simply ripped it from his chest. Oh, Dolores, he thought desperately, what have we done . . .

For her, pain was liberation—to shatter, to break, was freeing. For him, this pain was torture–he was forced into a cage of his own creation where he would stay. This torment would be his confine forever.

Dolores watched him fall. She knew it was dangerous to stay, that surely someone would see her, but she needed to know. Needed to know that he was gone, that it was over. In the end, all men are only mortal. For what are they to the power of immortality? Despite their pride, they would always fall victim to the vastness of forever.

She studied the way he fell down the stairs the way one studies a particularly interesting story. When he at last came to rest at the foot of the steps she walked down to meet him. She knew he was dead, knew it was over without needing to find a pulse. She could feel it, could feel his soul leaving his body, escaping to the rocks below. She saw the wound inside him breaking open. The betrayal written on his face. He had betrayed himself.

His neck was snapped at an odd angle, the rest of his limbs tangled beneath him. Blood was seeping from a wound on his temple, where he had hit his head on the banister. Already the guests in the lobby were gathering in a sea of disruption, nobody knowing exactly what to do next. Is he dead? she heard one man whisper to his friend, who shook his head. Without a doubt. Not even the devil himself could have survived a fall like that.

The devil, indeed. The irony was not lost on her.

Dolores smiled. She would see him below.

⸺⸺

Francis awakened in a room of pulsing shadows. He raised his head, took in his surroundings. Where am I? he wondered. He felt quite heavy, as if his body was weighed down by sacks of sugar.

The memory came to him, quite suddenly: Rolling down the stairs, a sharp pain in his ribs and then a hard crack in his neck. He was dead, dead as a doornail. The shadows in the room seemed to nod, revealing sharp points of teeth, bared like wolves. He didn’t know if they were smiling, or if they were snarling.

A shape, hazy and indistinct, was approaching him. As it came closer, it came into razor-sharp focus—a young woman, clothed in shifting white fabric, a veil covering her face. She lifted it behind her head, casting it away. It floated slowly toward the ground, rustling slightly, translucent as a jellyfish. He was sure that if he reached out to touch her, his fingers would close on thin air.

“Good evening, Francis,” said Dolores softly, as she melted away until her voice was nothing but a shimmering pillar of light. “Welcome to the other side.”