I HAVE EXISTED HERE so long, in this house, that I feel it is mine. These walls are my skin. The insulation that fights the cold is the layers between that skin and my organs. My heart is the electrical panel, sending pulsing neurons throughout the house to bring light.

When Spencer brought Sophie here, I followed them up the stairs. My stairs. And I saw the horror in his face, like he was staring into a gaping canyon, when I told him what was in my heart. He doesn’t know that I’m really here, so I can’t hold him to a behavior reserved for the married. He thinks I am an illusion. But are these floors beneath his feet that are hard, cold, and unyielding, also an illusion? I’m as real as the floors. I’m as real as the very house that surrounds him! Still, I must forgive him for thinking that I am not real. The alternative is too unbearable.

After my profession, Spencer made love to Sophie in my bed.

I wept when he called her name, burned with envy when she called his. And then I relished the feel of tears on my cheeks and the pink of the flesh on my arms. I’m not sure I could do this for the rest of Spencer’s life. Watch him with others, whilst I stood in the shadowlands. But, his nearness brings me close enough to realness, so close I can taste it.

When they were done, their bodies damp with sweat and their chests rising and falling rapidly in the afterglow, I slipped away, but by then Spencer and Sophie were too in-lust to notice me standing at the door. Spencer had given his body to another.

That fact sits with me like a poison pill eating through the lining of my stomach. I want to scream at him. I want to cry. But I cannot, not now. For in his lovemaking, Spencer has revealed the horrifying truth. He made love to that woman, but he also made love to someone else, too, hiding in her skin. He couldn’t see it. He was too busy.

The woman was Sophie one moment, kissing and coy, and then the other one, scratching her nails down his back and biting.

Obsidian eyes.

They frightened me. It was if I dreamed of them all night... all night without actually ever closing my eyes. They were ravens flying beneath the full moon, cawing to one another. She was there. I almost expected her to grow fangs and sink them into his neck. She didn’t, but her talons are as surely sunk into Spencer’s flesh as any vampire’s. She is making him hers. Hers. And I cannot bear it.

They’ve gone on to breakfast. I hide around the corners, uncertain how to proceed. How do you break up a romance when you’re a ghost? There are moments, when I am so real that I can touch things, move things, feel things. But now, I am a pale wisp of a thing again.

Until I figure out what Sophie is, I need to play it safe. So I’ll let them eat in peace. Spencer always retreats to his can on wheels out back when he cooks the occasional meal, and I haven’t ventured farther than the confines of this house since my cursing. I want to know though, despite being fearful of Sophie and whatever darkness lives beneath her skin. I want to throw caution to the wind and fight for Spencer. Even if he’s trying to ignore my existence.

The sun is bright outside, pouring light into the house from the open doors and windows. When did Spencer open them? He has them all raised fully, letting in more fresh air than has touched this house in years. It must have taken some effort as there are bits of flaked paint all over the floor and several windows are held open with bits of wood.

I move through the house, wishing I could feel the breeze against my skin. It is fluttering the tired drapes that have seen better days, days so long ago that I imagine Spencer was not even born yet.

I freeze when I hear laughter as I pass into the kitchen. The window is open here also. It offers a perfect view of the home on wheels. They are laughing together- Spencer and Sophie and... that thing inside Sophie.

Instinctively, I clamp my hands over my ears. I don’t want to hear them enjoying one another’s company. But my hands are a see-through nothingness. They cannot block the sound. I close my eyes and whirl in a slow circle, willing their voices to disappear.

As if my will was all the house needed, all the spirits needed, I feel myself begin to collapse inward, like a sink hole in the middle of a street that spreads outward, swallowing the cars parked near the curb and the passersby strolling on the sidewalk. All fall down into the hole that is me. And then I am gone, too.

Opening my eyes first, I find myself standing in the hallway of what might be a modern hospital. I’ve only seen one on the television, when someone over the years decided to turn one on and tune into some dramatic show with emergency room doctors and nurses flying about, trying to save fictional lives.

This is my life though, and I am not fictional. I am not some character on television suffering a gunshot wound to the stomach.

I lower my hands then, realizing that I can hear nothing here. When they are away from my ears, I hear the faintest sound of a baby cooing. It is sweet, the way a baby should sound when not hungry or wet or in need of touch. I move forward to find that precious bit of beauty in what is my wretched existence.

And I do find her, gorgeous and pink-cheeked and wrapped tenderly in a checkered blanket. She is nestled into one of the cribs that can be seen through a large viewing window. This is the maternity ward, the nursery. I only have eyes for her. I want her to open her eyes, I want to see what color they are. Something tells me that they’ll be green.

Movement behind the baby catches my attention. I look up from her absolutely perfect, cherubic face and I find them. The tailored suit clothing of the man with the slash across his neck. And the woman in her dress of rags. She is reaching for the baby, her gnarled hands coated in the blood that is still flowing freely from between her legs. “My baby,” she whispers, the words wet and numbing.

I can’t let her touch the little girl cooing so peacefully in the crib. I cannot let the decay and terror take their hold on her. I slam my hands against the glass and I scream. “Stay away from her!”

The ghost woman’s gaze flashes on me. Her eye sockets are empty and hollow. Something has happened to her since last I encountered her. I notice other changes now that I have seen this one unmistakable alteration.

The man, usually so impeccably dressed... his suit is fraying at the edges. His hair is slightly tousled. The imperfection of him has become more than just the jagged wound.

My hands are still on the glass, my fingers splayed out wide. They are beautifully, humanly pale with that slight rose-hue reserved only for the living. Looking down at the rest of my body, I realize that my clothes are perfect, and my toes are peeking out from beneath the folds of my dress skirt. They are clean and looking as alive as my fingers.

I am becoming more as they become less, but I don’t understand how. Spencer is pulling away and, with him, my chance at freedom. Why in this illusion am I looking like I have the upper hand?

“My baby.” The haggard once-a-mother says again, making my attention rush back to the baby beyond the glass.

But the lovely cherub is gone. In its place, is the withered, unmoving creature that I once held in my own arms, knowing not if it was a girl or a boy.

The woman has picked the skeletal body up now; she is rocking it back and forth in her arms. She has no thought for me. The man behind her has not moved at all, until now. He lifts his hand and places it upon the ghost mother’s shoulder. And they vanish. I am left alone, with nothing, save the impression of what has happened, to comfort me.

I think I understand now though. They have been as trapped as I have been. For whatever reason, this was their punishment, me their target. The father and mother of a baby that could not be legitimized? What was their real story? Why are they here...

I want to leave this place, with its sterile-looking floors and lack of décor. I want to leave.

But then I feel it.

It is here, in the hallway. I cannot see it yet, but it is here. I have only faced it once in all of these years. Once. All I can remember is the pain. It had felt like my body was being torn slowly apart by deliberate, sharp nails. Hundreds of them, like a comb digging into my skin and raking downwards, creating spaghetti noodles of flesh and blood.

No, the children should have come first. They should be here, with their masks hiding their faces. After the man and woman, the children always come. It should not be here yet. I am not ready. I would face the burns that the kids’ touches leave if it would save me from this.

I start running down the hall with no idea where it leads, even though I know there’s no running from it. Laveau’s greatest abomination. So much hate poured into one creation. I do not understand why it is here now.

I am still running, but the hall has not moved around me. I look and the nursery is still there beside me. I move faster, as fast as my legs can pump, but still, I am stationary. Stationary and cursed.