House of Longing | Part 2 of 3 [a nightbb story]

Part 1

In the way of hauntings, I began to catch glimpses of her presence. At first it was nothing but a feeling - a tingling in the air that dissipated as soon as I turned around, leaving nothing behind. My chest constricted painfully and I knew I needed more. 

There were many books about how to banish ghosts but none on how to get to know them better. Though we lived fairly freely in the City, I had no doubt that if her presence grew strong enough the City would return and find whatever she had hidden in the attic, the source of her presence. So I turned my attention to learning the particulars of the charms we used to keep the ghosts in check. I dug every one of the protection charms out of the wall, one by one, and learned to turn them to my advantage, to create a barrier of them around the perimeter of the house so that her presence was contained and couldn’t be felt beyond it, no matter how much the roses flourished. I tended the roses. I waited.

Her presence began to manifest as shadows in the house and finally one day a figure. The first time I truly saw her my heart ached for what I had already felt in my body. I was watching her from high above in the second floor window of my writing room, standing to stretch my legs when it happened. She was in an echo of a moment, walking down the front path to the house. She paused and turned slowly as if responding to someone and then she was gone. My heart burned and ached as I wondered what that was a memory of. Was it a time when she had been returning home and caught a glimpse of her beloved? 

She was so familiar already. Even though I had not seen her before, I had come to know her as slowly and steadily as I had learned myself. I knew the shape and hue of her, the scent and weight. Every quality evoked nostalgia in me.

The roses flourished and the house smelled like flowers.

I drew away from the outside world - content to stay in our house and our garden. I spent my days writing, delivering my stories as early as possible so I could spend the rest of the time learning the shape of her existence. From newspapers and books and retellings I had learned her mortal name and the day she had been declared dead. From that first sighting, her phantom became so strong that I would come upon her figure as I roamed our house, unaware of me as she went along her life. I learned her story in her own impressions.

The removal of the charms had other effects. I began to dream. I started on the first floor, seeing the curling flame fill the fireplace and spreading outward as tree roots and limbs supporting the house. Contained in the fire was a jeweled egg, somehow not being scorched by the roaring flame. I knew strange things that I could not speak: I felt her spirit winged and aflame and flanked by shadow figures in tones of cerulean and violet respectively. Roses seem to tumble from the branches that were the walls of the house and the scent was overpowering. As my specter wandered the halls, I knew that her magic was embedded in every piece of the house and that her spirit had changed, become something else marked by the scent of roses.

In the morning, I lingered over my morning brew wondering at my experience. I had become so enamored of her specter in its unchanging state, the endless play of images and actions over and over, frozen in time. But in my dream I had seen the house not through the eyes of my infatuation but with a deeper knowing. What I was seeing was not the whole of it. She had changed. I was changing too. 

The air seemed heavy for a moment. I had chosen to live in this dusky memory but if she had become something other than a ghost, was I willing to follow her story down that path?

Her scent filled my room that night, in the wee hours towards dawn. I groaned in response, pulling at the sheets and feeling my body stiffen. I took myself in my hand and stroked the length of me as my other hand circled my breasts. It built until it ached and I stopped, my body taunt with desire. But I would not let myself release.. In a way I did not know how. I breathed deep, feeling the energy and tension ebb back into the ocean of me, waiting for her next visit. I didn’t know why but I wasn’t ready yet.

She began to notice my presence.

I knew because she began to play with me. I got up from reading and she knocked the book to the floor. I put glasses in the sink, only to turn around and see them moved. I heard voices from upstairs and when I went to look I found nothing. Though it was startling and some times frightening, the panic added to my excitement. I wanted more and more to share her world. 

I brought home many more books on alchemy, on magic, and dreaming.

I felt her longing. As her echoes and memories played out in various scenes around the house, subtle changes began to happen. I watched her walk down the front path a hundred times, the scene playing out exactly the same every time until one golden afternoon as I watched her pause and waited for her to turn her head… she lifted it instead and stared directly at me for only a moment before vanishing. My heart skipped and I gripped the window.

It was precious and beautiful, a sliver of hope that revealed my truest feelings. It was everything and yet.. it wasn’t enough. The hope I felt in that moment revealed what should have been clear all along. I had fallen in love and I wanted to feel her.

But we only shared moments of the same reality. How could we ever share the same physical space? Though she had not died, she was not alive in the same way I was. My thoughts tumbled restlessly over each other as I combed through books and resources, trying to find something that had eluded me. 

We were not alive in the same way. She had once been alive but had become something else through the power of her heart. Did that mean then that I too could become a spirit in her twilight world? 

I created concoctions from the roses that had begun to overtake the house again. I made tonic waters and essential oils, cakes and jams. I made clay from the petals using some of the oldest lore and turned them into beads that I would wear against my skin. As my heat warmed them, their scent clung to me. I filled my baths with their petals and poured rosewater over my hair. My heart was full and lonely. I longed for her. It came upon me so suddenly and fierce that I ran from the house into the yard. I fell asleep in the roses.

She came to me when the sun went down, the shadowy green of the plants giving way to a train of fabric wrapped carelessly around her torso, leaving her brown breasts free. Her golden eyes were large and the sensuous curve of them warmed my skin. She was and was not a ghost. She had become part of the earth and this place. She was a liminal creature now.

“I’ve been dreaming of you,” I murmured, my throat tight and my groin tingling. She reached out both hands, her lips curving. Sharpness raked my skin as her claws traced patterns on my arms and I smelled fire.

“You’ve been dreaming of yourself,” she purred, the air filling with her scent.

And then she was gone.

Hey! My name is Ciel Sainte-Marie (aka So Nefarious). I'm a writer and artist hanging out on Steem, writing stories, and studying games. You can read my previous short stories: The Ghost at the Auction Party and The Unexpected Ghost.