A Waltz with Ghosts

I was never one who had faith in the existence of ghosts. Even now, having borne witness to what lurks in the shadows, I find myself inexplicably torn between the truth and the makings of a madwoman. Although time, ever-present and stealing, has altered the smallest of details, what I saw that night still flits about like a flame in the wind; always dancing, but never strong enough to extinguish.

It began, as most tragedies do, on a day of the most prosaic character. All those years ago, John and Maggie Hale lived in a modest manor on the edge of town, far from the prying eyes of gossip. He was a wealthy merchant, ensnared by the monotonous performance of obligation; she suffocated beneath the solemn weight of expectations. Unhappy would have been a kind word to describe them, but everyone knew that the lusts of youth dissipated as soon as one learned the difference between love and vanity. Still, in marriages like this, the men so quickly sought to find someone new who mirrored those once youthful passions. He was culpable of dissatisfaction, and she of naivety.

Although the day began like any other, the air had stilled when the clock struck three and the daily post arrived, as though the house itself were holding its breath. The husband and wife sat in the parlor when the butler arrived, bearing an invitation upon a silver tray.

“Thank you kindly, George,” John said, grabbing the invitation. He meticulously looked over it, his thumb rubbing the edges of the envelope.

Maggie tried not to act interested, though invitations of this refinement were ever so rare. The envelope was ivory in color, edged with a thin band of black which was flecked in gold, so that when the light through the window caught a glimpse, it seemed to gleam, courting the sun's favor. In the center was a jet black wax seal with an emblem with the letter ‘B’.

She watched from the corner of her eye, the book in her hand long forgotten, as he opened it, revealing the stiff card. She leaned forward, trying to see what was written on such expensive paper, though her hands trembled as if she already knew.

John looked troubled, but at the time, she had not paid attention to his mood, nor did she care to decipher what the tensed shoulders, the jaw rubbing, and the shaking leg meant. Her attention was fixated on the letter.

“Mr. and Mrs. Edmond Bellamy request the presence of Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan Hale at their Annual Gathering in Remembrance of Miss Clara Bellamy on the seventeenth anniversary of her passing,” John read as he put the letter down on the table, unable to stare at anything other than his hand, which seemed to have been burned, although there was no mark to prove it.

She never would have said it aloud to her husband, for the thing she feared more than the darkness was his irritation, but the peculiarity of a death celebration sent a rush through her, as if she had come across a secret thousands of years old.

“George, see that our reply is sent. My wife and I shall attend,” he said, looking over at his greatest vexation. “It is only proper that we do so, for Clara and I were childhood friends.”

Maggie never questioned him; she would not know how, so she nodded and returned to her book, the words on the pages disappearing in her mind as she could only think of the situation.

When her husband had finally left the parlor, looking ashen, she rested her book on her lap and picked up the card, which was smooth in her hands. The writing was beautifully carved onto the paper, the black ink melting into perfect lines, but on the name Clara Bellamy, the ink looked smudged, as if a teardrop had splashed on the ink, making it bleed.

Though she told herself she found it nothing of consequence, she found her thoughts returning to the invitation again and again, as though it whispered her name in the stillness of the house. The weeks passed; the air grew colder, the ground turned begrudgingly to frost, all a reflection of John’s deepening troubles. The closer they came to the twelfth of December, the more frigid he became.

When the day at last arrived, Maggie felt the twisting apprehension in her gut, but the excitement oscillated through her. No matter how sharp John’s words were, nor how the memory of his hand smarted, she found herself longing for the celebration. It kept her up most nights, imagining the fate of Clara Bellamy. John’s lips remained sealed, but she was better for it. When they arrived at the manor, which loomed on top of a hill, a mark in the compass of death, Maggie nearly jumped out of the carriage, her husband’s hand squeezing hers with white fingers.

Together, they ascended the marble steps, their carriage retreating into the fog until it vanished wholly into the dark. Maggie lingered a moment, watching its dim outline dissolve before following her husband in. Each footfall resounded upon the stone, a measured echo in the hush of eternity. Inside, the warmth was overwhelming as John led her through the corridor until they entered the well-lit ballroom. The guests moved around as shadows themselves, a blur of black cloth against the white lilies that crowded every surface, next to the hundreds of candles that cast restless light against the petals. They were Clara’s favorites, she had learned.

The music, the chatter, the soft flicker of candles, all blurred as her gaze drifted toward the room's center.

There she saw it: a laced-draped chair upon which sat a porcelain doll that had gone untouched for decades. Dust gathered in its hair, but time remained frozen. Forever, a smile lingered on its face, cheeks stuck with an almost penitentary, reproachful blush. That, I knew, was the grandest lie ever told.

When John greeted people, he presented his wife, and then she would fade into the gossip of others as the group caught up on racing and other things that interested the covetous nature of men. Then she heard her name whispered, her skin prickling up as the breath of it brushed against her.

The gazes began to make sense. Fiance. Oh, how the ghosts of our past come back as the phantoms that lurk in the deceit of infamy. Her heart faltered, dread sinking into the cracks of her chest as the truth took form before her.

John shook hands with Edmond Bellamy, not as friends, but once, as family.

“Good evening, Lord Edmond. Time has treated you with great kindness, I see.” John scratched Clara Bellamy’s face from his mind, but her eyes mirrored inside her father's. That old tangle of sentiments returned, growing with a need to be satisfied. “Permit me to present my wife, Mrs. Margaret Hale.”

She smiled, the age in her lines becoming a detestation of his life. How beautiful she once was, and how time had taken it all away. He could not fight the crawl of abrading heat that rose to his cheeks as he looked at her.

She took his hand, courtesying.

“Indeed, what a most gracious lady you have become. I am Lord Edmond Bellamy.” Edmond’s lips pressed against her hand, his eyes glossed over.

Indignation gnawed and ate away at John; she could feel it in the way he tensed, the way his eyes shifted, the way his expression never changed.

“Your presence is a most sincere delight to my wife and myself. We were most gratified to receive your reply, for you were an esteemed acquaintance of my late daughter.”

John shifted, his hands scouring in his pockets. “Indeed. Might I inquire as to the welfare of your stables and horses?”

Edmond laughed, so blissfully unaware of how John evaded the name of Clara Bellamy, but she saw it. She always did.

The men talked, and her attention was averted to the chair once more. Her husband drank his champagne, excusing himself from Edmond to stand with a group of old friends, Maggie his muted witness. Their voices blurred together in a drunken unity, her mind meandering to the chair. Up close, the red velvet looked like blood, the color seeping through the seat. Then, so suddenly, as if a figment haunting her mind, there was the sound of dripping water. She turned, hoping to find the source, only to see a glimpse of a pale skirt. She twisted further, distracting the attention of the men with her sharp movement. She only smiled, her expression as it always was, plain and blank, the dutiful sanity of a thoughtless woman.

A man broke the pressure, her protector from undesirable attention. “It is rather chill in here.” He pulled the jacket closer around his body as her husband patted him on the back, proclaiming what? The simple truth?

She, too, was cold, the flesh on her arms feeling the resentment of freezing death. A shiver passed, and her eyes lifted.

Through the crowd, she saw the woman, who could only be Clara’s mother. She had age lines, her dark hair mixed in with white specks, but not all of it was from age; shame and misery interwoven themselves through her, peaking through the cracks of her body, forever an imprint on her soul, but it did not hide her gentle beauty.

The tap of the glass. Another. The room hushed all about, eyes drifting to the woman, who stood next to her husband behind the chair, their hands resting on the back of it as if they were posing for a family portrait.

“Permit me to share my gratitude to all who have honored the memory of my dear daughter, Clara.” Her voice resonated through the hall. She was the very picture of elegance, yet the deliberate emphasis upon my sent a chill rushing through Maggie's spine. She recognized the woman, as all who shared the same account

“It has been far too long since our sweet Clara departed,” Lord Edmond remarked, a faint, sinister amusement illuminating his face. “My dear, shall I make the announcement, or would you care to do so?”

Intrigued, Maggie leaned forward, her eyes reflecting the delight of her heart. All of it coursed through her, swimming with all the possibilities she allowed herself to feel. Death. Life. Grace. Mercy. What was it she sought, and which one answered back?

They chuckled, her husband's touch gentle on the chair, as if it was not capable of causing the greatest of evils. “A singular wonder it is indeed; yet, by some means, we have restored our dear girl to our presence, as if time itself had bent to our desire.”

A murmur rippled through the crowd. Maggie’s pulse quickened, the air thick in her lungs. Her body froze. John stiffened. So it was life then, or a cruel imitation of it. As if to mock her very thought, a discordant note rang out upon the pianoforte, a melody contaminating the air. A small gasp escaped around the room. It went with the music—overlapped, overwhelming—making her want to dance alongside it.

All the candles, with the beckoning of death, were quieted, their light smothered from them in a cloud of smoke. The darkness filled the room, yet the guests, and there were many, stood in fear, clung to the spot they stood in, waiting for the supernatural to appear, if it would at all.

On the third measure, the ballroom doors burst open. All eyes turned, backs to the smiling doll that sat chastened upon the chair. In the doorway stood a pale woman, water dripping from her dark hair, her green eyes glowing with the invisible mark of Cain. Each step she took, she left pools of water in her wake. Maggie touched her neck, an ache building, as if someone was holding their hand against it, sucking the air from her very body.

“Clara…” John murmured with forgotten longing, taking a step forward to the youthful illusion of death. She looked at him from across the room. A sloshing step after another until she stood before him, radiant. She reached out a hand, water dripping off as if it were raining. John’s eyes glazed over. His face looked steeped in every mortal vice.

The Bellamys clapped, their joyous tears echoing across the room, at the return of their daughter. As if she had truly returned, but death was final, overraching with its veiled grasp, ready to take.

John took her hand, and the people watched in hazy shock, unable to make sense of what they saw. In the glint of darkness, the ring on Clara’s finger gleamed with a light that should not have existed, the very same that had become dull on her own. Her heart thumped violently, straining to be unburdened of its cage. It began to strain, as if it could not keep up with the thoughts that tortured her mind in quiet amusement.

They walked to the dance floor, the music their companion. His hand rested on her back, and they moved in unison to the piano. They danced, and how beautiful it was, as if she looked in the mirror that showed the past, and it was Maggie dancing with him.

They moved so perfectly, bringing back the past for John. He held her close, remembering the days when she was alive. She smiled up at him, her face so lively, like she looked the last day he saw her. Her hair, so plump and real, the darkness of it contrasting against her fair skin, which was decorated in small freckles. And she smiled, a blush kissing her cheeks.

Clara leaned forward, like she did the day he proposed, and the day she died. Her lips were nearly touching his ear, a flicker of a whisper brushing against him, but it was cold, dead.

“You have already lost me. It is he whom I choose.”

He pushed her off. Her parents’ laughter echoed in his mind. His heart stammered. Once. Twice. He took another step back, but she matched it. She reached her hand out. The life completely drained from her. The hand of death never fails to seek justice.

“Please, Jonathan,” she begged, her face contorting in pain. “It hurts.”

He tried to turn, to run, but her hand grabbed his neck from behind, pulling him to the ground. The breath left his lungs, and everyone watched in reverence.

“It was always him. How can you not see that? How do you not know?”

He wanted to cry out, but saw a flash of his wife in the crowd as she stepped forward. He hoped she would come to save him, but her hand dripped with water.

Maggie stared at the ghost of Clara, who hovered over John. She watched as the phantom leaned in, whispering death in his ear. His face paled, his eyes wildly looking for help. If only he did not know how to properly domesticate a woman, she might have stepped in and helped him, but after all these years, how could the one who needed to be protected know how to do the saving?

John gave a strangled cry and was swallowed by the dark. The music stopped. The candles lit, filling the room with unending life, chasing away the mark of death. And John no longer existed in the room. He was gone, but the doll on the chair remained, a soft smile on its face, its cheek full of fake blush on its porcelain skin.

“My sincerest thanks to all those who joined us this year. I look forward, as ever, to the next,” Edmond’s voice broke the mist of silence. Everyone applauded with vacant delight. Maggie looked, and she saw. They did not remember, their faces to blissful after witnessing death. She smiled, rubbing the last of the stinging pain in her neck.

That night, the Bellamys slept in peace in their beds, unaware of the stirrings in the frozen lake that had a dark shadow beneath the ice, a lake full of thawed deceit. She heard it said it never cracked, that nothing moved beneath it, but I heard it, a vast and ominous cracking sound in the night as I stood in the window of my hotel room. And I, the madwoman, find myself unrestrained, even in my cage of white and shackles of cloth, because I only know the truth of the man who waltzes with ghosts.

Ah, but you see, it is ever thus: let them praise their martyrs. The murderers, as ever, shall outlive them.