“LOOK AT ME. LOOK AT me. Please.” My hands are pressed against the window glass. I want to know. I need to know. He is different.

This time is not the same as all the others...

He’s walking toward the house, bottles and towels tucked beneath his arms. His focus is steady. My pleading is doing nothing. “Please look at me.” It is a whimper, a weak thing that barely forces its way between my lips. I need him to save me.

He doesn’t, and I hit the glass, but I don’t get the satisfaction of shattering it.

He keeps walking, strolling into the house like I’m not pressed against the window, like a starving girl staring at a beignet. Like I’m not here and the only thing that matters is that small crate of canisters and cleaning aerosols cradled in his hands. The burly man is going to clean something downstairs, wipe away the dust from the decades it’s been since anyone was brave enough to live here.

I watch him shake his head as I slam my palms against the window once more. I feel that he hears me. He must. But he chooses to ignore my banging, as if it is something he is imagining. He lives with more frightening apparitions than my form. There’s no other explanation.

His heavy footsteps vibrate up the supports that hold the porch’s sagging roof, through the floor, and finally arrive to tickle the soles of my feet. The front door creaks and then slams behind him. I can hear that sound. I can feel the way the house shakes. He must feel me. He must.

I can’t fall into nothingness again. I can’t survive without him seeing me. And touching me. He has brought color into my life again.

This is what I do not want to do. This is how I should not fall, into love and lust with this man that I barely know. I know in my soul that it risks all that I have left, the small freedom I have to walk around this house—with all its gloomy shadows and lingering spirits.

Demons.

At the thought of them, those other souls that exist with me in this house unseen, a shudder runs the length of me. It begins in my toes—the toes that so recently felt the vibration of Spencer entering the house—to terminate along my scalp.

Will they scare him away? For that is why the others ran. It wasn’t just my doing. I’d wanted to be friends, to find companionship to make my prison bearable. They’d wanted them gone. I wondered if it was Laveau’s grand design, to trap me in a house with unkind spirits, to keep me forever separated from the living. I hear a crash downstairs followed by a grunt and expletive. I won’t let anyone keep me from him. No one will rob me of the changes I have already experienced.

The fleeting sapphire in my eyes. The touch of rose at the tips of my fingers. He has given me a taste of life again. Even this prison could not be so cruel, to give and take in such a manner. A whoosh of air behind me makes me twirl, the ragged hem of my dress creating a cloud of dust as it drags against the floor. I do not have time to stop and wonder that I have touched something again, caused the dirt and grim to billow from the hardwoods in a cough-inducing cloud. No, there is no time to marvel.

The house breathes around me.

The shiplap that lines the wall push outward towards me and then sink inward once again. It is reminding me that it is in control. It is laced with the spell that holds me hostage.

“No, not this time.” I scream the words at the house. I turn so fast that I become a hurricane whipping the dust up around me. “Not this time. You won’t scare him away. He’s different.”

But it’s done it before. I remind myself, as I listen to the futile echoes of my yelling. It has given companionship. It has taken it away. Always leaving me alone. Why do I think this time might be different? I’m fooling myself. A child’s hope. There is nothing I can do to stop the demons, to quiet the walls, to keep him longer than the spell allows.

And yet...

I find myself hurrying down the stairs to see this strange man with the wide shoulders, to be near him. I am eager to sense his warmth, as though he’s come to ask me to court him, after whispered intentions in shadowed corners, hidden away from chaperones.

On the last stair, I stop, trying to determine where he is. And then I hear him. He’s foul-mouthed in the half-bath, the one an owner installed beneath the stairwell. He’s cursing at the layer of grime and dust.

I step down and around the newel post. The pocket door is wide open and he’s attacking the counter with a layer of foam cleaner and a bristle-brush. He’s made mud on the marble and he’s successfully smearing it from one side to the other.

His expletives are long, run-on cursing that makes no real sense, but I can’t help the upturn to my mouth.

“Gah Dammit. Who the fuck cleans a bathroom before the water is turned on?” He pushes the muddy mess from left to right once more before slinging the brush at the wall. “Can’t do shit right.” And then he tries to take a step away from the mess but staggers slightly. He squints and then looks through me.

I know he can’t hear me, but I open my mouth to speak anyway. I want him to hear. My hope believes he can. A glint on metal catches my eye as he passes me by.

Beneath the hem of his short pants, he has one muscular, hairy leg and one...

I press my hands over my lips. This isn’t the grotesque tortures my mother devised and attached to her attic terrors. She mutilated the unwilling, linking them to chains.

This is different.

Yet I cannot help but draw a comparison that sends my mind into visions, drawn from memory and warped by terror.

Spencer returns with a little bucket. And I continue to stare.

My companion balances on a lustrous metal leg. Now I understand his odd gait. And maybe I understand why he chose this place, with its brokenness and its despair. It’s an echo of him.

I crouch down to study the shape of the alloy, the curve of it, and the usefulness of it. It’s a marvel in its construction. It must not be heavy, else he’d weary often. Black iron would never have worked, but this shiny appendage wasn’t distorted or misshapen. I am slowly dispelling the pictures of my mother’s horrors in my head. The more I study, the more they are replaced by absolute wonderment.

Wheels to stretch and chains to bind. Silvered railway spikes through wrists. Heads crushed beneath cannon balls ... Or Lia impaled upon the spires of black iron fence.

I’ve never seen metal attached to a person with such benefit.

I want to know the story of how he lost that part of himself, how he gained a replacement. I imagine he was heroic and self-sacrificing. He probably doesn’t think so, but I think his shoulders are broad enough to carry that mantle. If I were alive, I would be blushing.

No, he is nothing like the screaming men, torn asunder by mother’s madness. He is... lovely.

And then I smile as he cleans up his mess with paper towels, wiping over and over again. Because he is more like me than I ever could have imagined. And, despite the shared anguish of losing the selves we knew before, I allow myself the extravagance to imagine that the universe, serendipity, or maybe the Fates of old, have brought someone to befriend me.

Even as I celebrate the realization, my subconscious mocks my word choice. My eyes drift down the muscular man, lingering on places young ladies were never allowed to look when I was... Real. My thoughts dwell on the couples that have stayed here and the pleasures I never experienced.

Spencer pushes by me once more. I will him to feel my presence as he passes so close, but he gives no indication that he has sensed me. When he starts rummaging through the pile of things in the adjacent room, I follow him.

It’s a lie to say the euphoria that courses through my veins is because I desire Spencer as a friend. I have no social decorum to consider and no family or reputation to protect. If I consider him honestly, I need Spencer to look at me like he did last night, and then I want him to touch me. In intimate ways. In ways Richard didn’t.

Richard.

The time for loyalty has gone. Even the most spinsterly aunt would count my time of mourning passed, and I would be free to marry.

If I were real I would be free.

Other memories flood me now, so vibrant and overcoming that I move to sit in a chair still covered by a brittle white sheet. Spencer becomes a vague outline as I succumb to the past.

I see the wedding dress I’d dreamed of—the layers of lace over cotton, the way the high neck framed my chin and cheeks. I hear the vows, said only to each other in the presence of God and not bound by legalities.

I remember how it was.

When I was real...

***

~1833~

“RICHARD,” I WHISPER. “Are you there?”

I move quickly across the front lawn of the abandoned mansion. The owners went back North for some shame-made reason or another. And the pecan tree-filled lawn has been our rendezvous location for weeks. It’s easy to hide in the multitude of shadows, and we’ve often escaped the notice of passing people by slipping into the swallowing darkness.

The frogs are calling advertisements to each other, carnival hawkers trumpeting their quality traits in a bid for bedmates. I’ve always wondered how the croaking, romantic nothings translate. Perhaps I’d rather Richard woo me with froggy phrases. No. I want words, whispered and lovely. I want kisses along my neck. I want the things that no unattached maid is supposed to desire.

Two nights ago, I played the demure young lady, but my body craves more than polite touches and courtship etiquette.

I have heard the ballroom whispers—other debutantes’ explicit adventures with men they are not betrothed to. Richard is too much the gentleman for such things. Even these late night rendezvous push the boundaries of what he is willing to do before we are married. If he were to attempt such things, a roaming hand, a deeper kiss, I might have hesitated for a false sense of propriety, but then I know I would be undone—a clawing and mad thing, full of heat.

God, I’ve imagined his tongue licking the inner softness of my thigh. The line of wetness he creates moving ever upward until... I push the thought away. I’m sure I’m blushing.

“Richard?” I whisper again, my voice more insistent this time.

He bursts from between two tree shadows. “Ta dah,” he says, and takes a bow. It is boyish and charming. His trousers are cinched around his thin waist. He’s my secret gentleman, concerned always with my reputation, but I know something he doesn’t.

I love this man. And I’ll say yes when he finally asks me to marry him. He’s made promises too, once he is established and can support us. I am wild and impatient, wanting to jump into marriage with nothing but the dress upon my body, but he refuses.

Richard stretches his arms wider, beckoning me to him. I go without hesitation, arching my back slightly and pressing my breasts against his chest. He groans under his breath and begins to push me away, his sense of propriety getting in the way of our closeness. When I whimper—a girlish, simpering sound, he presses me against him with such force that I can feel our hearts beating as one. Despite the corset and petticoats and yards of fabric between us, I can tell he’s been thinking of me in the same ways I’ve already been thinking of him. His body gives him away.

And it pleases me to have this sort of power over him.

He finally pulls away from me and takes my mitten-covered hand, tugging me toward the side of the house. “There’s a tree just over this way,” he says. “We can sit on it. I think the arborists felled it earlier today.”

In my slippers, I follow him around the side of the abandoned house and to the back. There’s a log across the ground, long enough for the two of us, but not much longer. I hide my smile. He’d be scandalized if I suggested I sit on his lap.

Richard uses his handkerchief to brush the grit and grime from the log. He seats me first and then takes his spot, leaving a bit of space between us. I try not to roll my eyes. We always start this way, but we’re gasping for air by the time our visit has finished.

“How was your day?” Richard’s fingers flex on the surface of the log and I know they are itching to touch me again.

Rolling the glove sleeves down my forearms, pretending I don’t see Richard watching as my skin is slowly revealed, I speak, trying to sound breathless and feminine like Annabelle has taught me. She is a talented actress though. I have trouble maintaining even a modicum of guise.

“Busy with party plans. Mother wants to throw another ball.” I glance up at my beaux. The gloves are sitting in my lap now. They still hold a hint of shape, but soon fully flattened.

There’s sweat on Richard’s upper lip, but he pulls his eyes away from my arms. When he looks at me, there is an overwhelming heat in his gaze. My cheeks are fire now, full of blush and flame. I shift my body forward, wanting to close the gap between us. But he looks upward, at the stars flickering between the sparse canopy above. He makes a face, as if my words have ruined our moment.

“If her guests knew what you and I know...” He doesn’t finish the sentence, but I nod, even though I don’t want to discuss it. I can’t stomach it.

My mother is an evil woman.

She is always destroying things. I will not let talk of her destroy these few moments we steal away to be together.

“What did you do today?” I change the subject, leaning forward so that I bulge out of the scandalous, low-cut dress Annabelle insisted I wear. She said it never fails her, when she wants what only a man can give her. She’s been asked to wed three times already, so I believe her.

Richard doesn’t answer. I’ve had my eyes lowered, staring at where his hand rests on the tree. As the silence lengthens, my back begins to ache with the effort of leaning, so I sit up. When I do, I see that his gaze is focused on my chest; he studies the milky skin that trails from collarbone to the valley between my breasts. “Richard?”

“Um, what?” he says, averting his eyes quickly. “I’m sorry.” He shrugs nonchalantly, standing and putting even more space between us. I do not like that, that is the opposite of what I want, and I am worried that the magic in Annabelle’s dress is reserved only for her use. “I suppose I’m distracted. I’m sorry, Marie.”

Reaching up, I lace my fingers with his. He does not resist me when I pull him back to sit beside me. This time, I do not let the emptiness of log exist between us. I scoot closer, until our hips are pressed firmly together. “Distracted?” My fingers move to trace the line of his neck. “By what?”

His Adam’s apple bobs up and down. God, I love it when I make him nervous. A pulse runs through me and the sensation between my legs is just this side of pain over pleasure. “Yes,” he breathes. “Distracted...” The word fades away as I lean in and kiss him lightly, my lips lingering on the strong line of his jaw. It’s bold of me. I worry it is too bold and he will be scared off. Instead, he surprises me.

His arm snakes around my waist. When he speaks, his voice is heady and soft. “May I kiss you now?”

The question was spoken euphoria. It caused a river of exhilaration to pulse through my veins. My blood was boiling. Hot and scorching through me.

“Why, Richard,” I answer, and his face falls, as if he is not sure of how I will respond even though I have just kissed him and gone against all of my ladylike upbringing. “Yes, please.”

I’m not begging, I tell myself. Even though I know I am and that my ‘please’ sounded like a courtesan begging for one more taste of high society.

He presses his lips to mine, his arm around my waist trying to pull me so close that we will no longer exist as two people, but one. Still though, the kiss is demure, it does not trespass into abandon. We’ve been here before. He’s holding back. I’m tired of the coyness. Every time I return home, I’m terrified it’s the last time I’ll see him. That my mother will find out and intervene. I’ve been chatting with the two friends I’m allowed. They’re both older than I am and more experienced. I heed their words, their advice, and I grasp the back of his head, smoothing the tip of my tongue across his bottom lip.

He jerks backward with the surprise of it, and his eyes widen. “Marie, what are you doing? You mustn’t.” Immediately, he tries to release my body and move away, but I won’t allow it. Not this time.

Richard is stronger though and his determined movements to stand overcome my weaker grip.

The sting of his retreat is acid, it eats away all of the romantic heat I have felt in these moments. “You didn’t like it.” It is not a question, but a statement. And I know I sound sad and defeated.

“That isn’t what I meant,” Richard says, his eyes pleading with me to understand.

And I do understand, but I do not want to understand. Not right now, when the fire of our passion has been so maddeningly extinguished once again.

I stand then so that we are on even ground. Wringing my hands, I walk away a few steps, keeping my back toward my love, studying the carriage road beyond the wooded lawn.

“Richard,” I begin, my voice soft and tired, “every time we are together, it could be the last time. I could go home tonight, this very night, and it could be the end of what we have. I don’t want you to think that I’m not... that I’m not a lady, that I don’t respect your need to be a gentleman and do things correctly, the way we should do them. It’s just,” I dissolve, everything I am pouring out into the few tears that begin to trickle down my cheeks, “I cannot imagine a life without you. I cannot imagine this ending without us being truly together, in every single way it is possible for a man and woman to be together.”

I hear a moan behind me. He’s heard me, despite how softly I have spoken. There is silence again between us, but then I hear his footsteps as he stomps across the grass, wraps an arm around my middle, and pulls me hard against him. “I do want you, Marie. I do. More than I’ve ever wanted anything. But I won’t take away your innocence.” His mouth is pressed against my ear, his words like honey floating in to calm the acid roiling in my heart. A thrill curls in my belly and warms me until I can feel a flush creeping across my cheeks. I don’t often see aggression from my genteel man.

“My life is anything but innocent, Richard. The things I’ve seen, what I’ve already lived through. You wouldn’t be taking anything away.  You’d be giving something to me. A beautiful something to hold onto.”

He leads me the short way back to the tree, easing me down into my seat and rounding the makeshift bench so he’s behind me. He kneels and kisses my shoulders and neck, both fully exposed by Annabelle’s dress, which is magic after all. Richard whispers my name, and I arch against him. I am so lost in the moment, my eyes closed and my lips slightly parted, that I do not realize he’s moved to kneel in front of me until his face lowers and his mouth begins to trace the line of my collar bone. I sink my hands into his hair, gripping the strands and sighing as his lips move lower to kiss the top of my breasts one by one.

When he leans away, my fingers slip from his hair, and my entire body aches with need. We look at one another for a moment, both realizing that something has changed between us. And it is a welcome shift in our relationship.

Only... I can’t help but be afraid that he won’t find me... enough.

Perhaps my mother is right.

Richard’s gaze finally moves again, his eyes tracing my body as if he is memorizing it. And then his slender right index finger traces the low-line of my bodice. His breathing is faster now, expelling through gritted teeth as though he’s struggling to restrain himself.

It delights me. I’ve never pleased anyone. No one has ever been satisfied with me. His fingers dip into the space between the fabric and my skin and I shudder. I want him to be even bolder. To touch me somewhere I’ve never been touched before.

“May I?” His hand leaves the inside of my dress and tugs on the lace at my shoulder. “I’ll be careful, soft, gentle. Your honor will remain intact. I promise.” He is the one begging now and that fact increases the ache between my legs tenfold. The grating sound of his voice through his clenched teeth, the desire that clouds his eyes, everything about this hot Louisiana night further stokes the fire once again coursing through me.

The air around us is thick with desire, and I imagine the fireflies brightening the sky are fairies, gleefully dancing around us in encouragement.

“Richard...” If he doesn’t like what he sees, I couldn’t bear the rejection. But I want him as badly as he wants me. Catching my bottom lip between my teeth, I nod without meeting his gaze.

He eases the top of my bodice down, and the low cap sleeves slide down my arms, pressing them to my sides like a restraint. I’ve worn this borrowed dress, this corset with purpose. And as the fabric recedes, my breasts spill out. The feel of the cool evening air against my exposed chest is... there aren’t even words.

Richard shudders.

I fight the urge to squeeze my eyes closed and turn away. “Are you... pleased?”

He lifts a hand, reaching toward me, his fingers splayed wide, but he doesn’t answer, and he doesn’t look into my eyes. He’s staring at my nakedness with a pained expression.

And then I do turn away, crying for the second time this night. My mother has been right all along. No man will find me worth marrying. It isn’t just the scars along my back and legs. It is my nature. I will never be an Annabelle. I bend both arms at the elbow, pulling upward on my sleeves. The sound of ripping fabric shatters the moment. It is right, that my ugliness should mar the lovely dress.

Richard grasps my shoulders, turning me back toward him. “Dearest Marie,” he whispers. “You are more beautiful than I ever imagined. I don’t deserve you. I never will, no matter my profession or estate.” And then lays his hands over mine, which are still trying to pull the torn dress up over my body. His touch calms their movement.

I stare, wide-eyed and surprised, as he lowers his head and drags his tongue over the soft bump of pink that crowns my left breast. The night’s slight breeze chills the moistened path and I become so hard that it is painful.

“You’re beautiful beyond any words I possess, Marie.”

He is as enraptured as I; the length of him, like steel, presses against my calf as he leans back in for another taste. Reaching down, pushing my hand between our bodies, I feel him, grip him as well as I can beneath the tight trousers he wears. He stiffens against me, stunned, but this time I do not worry that he will pull away at my boldness. In a fever, his right hand comes to knead the breast not already covered by his lips. We both moan, our united voices giving the fireflies a fitting song to continue their dancing flight.

I tilt my head back, eyes closed, hand rubbing against him. His mouth moves, suckling enthusiastically, his hot breath fanning across my warm skin. I do not want this night to end. I want this to go on, into forever.

My innocence is his for the taking. Please let me be enough.

***

BUT IT WAS NOT TO BE. Richard and I experienced passion that night, but we had not crossed the line into marital joy. I wanted him to. I can still feel his mouth pressed against me. I can still feel the ache in my groin.

But that was before. When I could feel.

My knees are trembling from the memory and I am glad that I am still seated in the living room; I am awash in emotion that is stronger than it’s been since I’ve been trapped here.

I know it is Spencer who has wakened feelings I thought long buried. As the past slips from me, the heat in my body fading, Richard becomes Spencer, bent over me, moaning my name. And I find myself wishing, once again, to be rid of my maidenhood.

Oh, yes, Spencer is dangerous.

I do not know how long I have been frozen in recollection, but my now companion has left the living room. Immediately, I go to find him within the confines of this prison, but I am still shaking, still victim to longing and desire.

Once the weakness passes, I follow the sound of saws and tools and burly-man curses into the kitchen, unable to ignore his presence.

He is the Pied Piper seeking revenge, and I am the child unable to resist his call.

Even as the she-demon wails my name from the other side...

Here I am. Happily going towards my demise.