A Haunted House

My beloved Antonin-

I scarcely eke out the dash, smudging the ink as I do, my hands are trembling so hard. I set down the fountain pen, the only sound in the dark house the clacking of its metal clip against the scarred wooden desktop, and shake both hands back and forth, then massage my fingers, palms, and wrists- as if these tremors are just some byproduct of my age, or of fatigue, that I can rub away. Oh that I could rub this all away! I gasp at the thought of it.

Your name on the parchment is like a siren, pulling my attention toward it even when there are other things to be attended to. I notice the bare “i” and smile even as my stomach lurches, ballooning up into my throat. Hastily, I reach for the pen and dot the i with a heart. Our inside joke, since you teased me in grade three for decorating each and every i with a heart; you’ve signed your name with one on every letter since.

I have struggled to catch my breath every moment since you left. I know that I am in this world and that there is air to breathe, but any gravity that pinned me to this earth and pulled the heavens in small portion down into my lungs seems to have gone; I cannot breathe, cannot will the ether into my body, like my very being is rejecting the components of life. Who could blame them? What use is this life, this body, this consciousness, without you in it?

I do not cry anymore, not much. The burning sensation behind my eyes has been usurped by an absent sort of buzz, like the pins and needles that prick at the soles of your feet when they fall asleep. Perhaps that’s what has happened, in any case: my brain, my soul, my heart, have fallen asleep, numb, cold, devoid of life itself- but here I am, I keep on living, but how? I can’t explain it. I don’t even feel real anymore. Perhaps I am a shade haunting the body I used to inhabit. Not yet a ghost, but something more like a haunted house.

A gust of wind buffets the transom window above the desk, and it falls open with a clatter; icy rain like skeletal fingers peppers the parchment and your name begins to smear across the top of the page. For a moment I sit motionless in the ladderback chair, having not even jumped at the intrusion. Haunted houses do not jump, they only groan.

As the page in front of me goes soaking and translucent it occurs to me that I should stop the influx of water. Every word of my letter has become illegible, save for one: how? No matter, I think. No one will read this, in any case.

My nib tears at the parchment with each stroke now, saturated fibers pulling apart as it drags across the surface.

All I know is that I cannot do this life without you. You were the soul that animated this body, the lit lamps in the windows that drove out the shadows. My pride, should it exist, would preclude my asking, but as it has withered and fallen away like the rest, I beg you: my beloved Antonin, my dearest friend, my most tender companion- please return to me. I will do anything, become anything, trade anything. Raise me from the dead! Or if you cannot, be the kindly caretaker of this desolate old homestead and come ‘round from time to time to cut back the weeds and vines so that I am not completely consumed by them.

Yours very truly, forever

Mary

The sky is gray, a long expanse of a singular, unbroken cloud. It makes me feel claustrophobic, as if there’s a heavy field of snow floating above my head, could fall in one catastrophic flake and blanket everything and everyone, burying us so deeply beneath it at any moment. At the perimeter of my consciousness, the void taunts the cloud: Do it, do it.

The ground is still soggy from last night’s storm, with the thinnest crust of ice crackling beneath my leather boots as I traipse heavy-footed through the grass. Fingertips red with cold, I grip the letter tightly to stop the shaking of my hands. I concentrate on the cloud of hot breath that mushrooms into the air in front of me as I huff my way up the side of the hill.

I had intended to say something- make an emotional speech or a passionate petition, or even just tell you what you mean to me, but once I arrive, the words fall away and I feel overwhelmingly foolish. I push a hair from my face, my letter delivered, and nod silently. I fix my eyes up toward that armageddon sky to keep the tears from pooling and falling, and begin to swiftly retrace my steps down the hill. Behind me, my rain-soaked letter flutters down to the freshly turned earth of your grave.

Twilight has swept through the moor, and I turn the heavy brass lock on the front door, light the lamp in the foyer, draw the heavy damask curtains in the den. It feels performative; I do each of these tasks because I have always done them, but they feel somehow pointless now. When I wake in the morning I will undo all of them, until I redo them again tomorrow night, over and over again through a string of endless, empty days.

I hang my black lace veil on the halltree, and my hand has scarcely brushed the bannister to climb the stairs when there is a bang at the door. I pause, startled, and wait for another knock, but it doesn’t come. Around the back of the house, Antonin’s pheasant dog whimpers and growls in the darkness. My hands knot themselves up in my dresses. Slowly, I step down from the bottom stair and inch toward the door, hesitating at the lock.

When I throw the heavy cherry door open, there is no one- no mourning caller, wild boar, or robber baron. There is only a crumpled letter and a trail of mud from the front door, around the back of the house.

The fine downy hairs on my arms rise and a chilled gust of wind sends the letter skittering across the threshold, coming to rest just in front of my feet. I crouch down and with trembling fingers pull the letter from the mud-streaked, rumpled envelope. A strangled cry escapes my throat as my eyes sweep over the familiar sloping scrawl-

My darling Mary,

There is no need to beg. I am coming back for you.

I remain now and always

Your devoted,

Antonin

There is a heart dotting the i.