Unlocking the door, she undid the latch. Sighing, the young woman grabbed her shopping bags and shouldered her way in. It was a little dance she did coming home alone, and the final step was a quick shooting out of her foot to catch the swinging door before it hit the plaster and, catching it, then quickly kicking it closed. She’d done it many times, and setting her groceries down again, she refastened the lock. Taking up her burden, she turned and took the few steps that brought her past the little used little coat closet and into the living room.
It took a moment of silent staring before her brains caught on. A trail of rose petals leading away to the darkness of the waiting bedroom. Her lips pursed. She needed to put the meat and frozen vegetables away. Did he expect her to just come running through the door and leap onto his lap? Probably. Men were just overgrown boys, after all. Then, half a smile came over her face. She recalled to herself that not all of her lovers were so romantic. The smile faded as she remembered which one had been.
Business was business, she reminded herself, shaking the memory off. She looked at the trail of rose petals again, noticing the white mixed with the red. He’d made no noise as of yet. Perhaps he hadn’t heard her kicking the door closed, though she heard of it from her neighbors often enough.
“Give me a moment,” she called. “I thought you said you’d be tied up all day.”
Taking a quick detour toward the kitchen, she found, as she turned on the lights, a single, white rose standing in a little crystal vase on the counter. She smiled again. Men were like that. Today, Ambrose would promise her the world. Tomorrow, who knew? The past rarely kept its promises of tomorrow. She’d learned to live in today.
There was a small placard hanging from the thorny stem, a white slip of cardboard held there by a frilled, red ribbon tided in a neat bow. Quickly stowing away the groceries, she finally flipped the card over and read:
“Love never dies.”
Corny, she thought, and coming from Ambrose, it didn’t mean much. Thinking of Ambrose, she wondered, He’s been rather quiet.
Undoing her blouse and kicking off her shoes, she walked along the trail of rose petals into the dark bedroom. A year’s anniversary. They’d make it special. Maybe it’d last another year too.
Standing before the dark chamber, her neckline opened down to her belt, her finger on the wall switch, she said, in as sexy a voice as she could manufacture, “Thanks for waiting,” and flipped on the lights.
The bed was empty. She crossed her arms and leaned against the doorframe. How like a man, she thought. Set all this up then get distracted. She shook her head. Men were children.
“It’s been a year,” a voice whispered behind her. She spun round, clasping her hand to her heart.
“Ambrose . . . ” she began, but her voice quickly died away. This was not Ambrose.
The specter—she did not know a better word than specter for the pale and bloodless figure standing before her—was dressed much as he had been dressed when she had last seen him. The hand which had guarded her heart slowly crept up to her trembling chin.
“Mor-or-Mort?”
His hand reached out, and his fingers tucked a stray strand of hair back behind her ear. There was something electric in that cold touch, a feeling of reality she had long ago given up.
Clasping his hand in both of hers, she pressed her cheek into his palm. There was no warmth there, just cool, calming balm to her fevered nerves.
“You’re alive?” she said.
He shook his head.
She nodded.
“I’m mad, then.”
“No, hon, but I am.”
She nodded again, closing her eyes. Letting go of his hand, she began to button up her shirt. “I know,” she said, then laughed. “Oh boy, I’m letting guilt get to me again.” She stood up tall and took three deep breaths. I did it for myself, she reminded herself. It was the best thing for me. I’d do it again if I had to. She had told herself these things before, though never in the face of a full blown delusion.
Clenching her fists together, she said aloud, “I’m going to open my eyes, and when I do, I’m not going to give in to myself. I am . . . ” she tried to remember the words of the self-help book she’d taken this from; it was titled something like A Witch’s Guide to Self-Reliance. ” . . . I am what I choose. I will not be a slave to others’ expectations, or my own. When I open my eyes, I will see the world as it is. No Heaven, no Hell, no God, no Devil; all is one is me. I am.”
She had done this ritual many times after Mortimer’s death and after Ambrose . . .
After all, it wasn’t like she had pushed him off that bridge, not literally. Ambrose was really to blame, she had told herself, and he was just a perception she had, and so just a thing of herself, as Mortimer had been. In the end, it was Mortimer who’d jumped, and that too was just Ambrose’s perception, his story, a perception’s perception. None of it was real. All of it was what she had chosen, in her control; though she may not understand her choices or know why she had taken the faithless Ambrose over the loving Mortimer, if she just accepted that she was all, she could rid herself of the silly ghosts of right and wrong, couldn’t she?
She opened her eyes, but the ghost was still there, a cold, waiting shadow of the past. So, she told herself, she had chosen, then, to see ghosts.
“A pretty spell,” the specter of Mortimer said, gently taking her hand. She looked up into his eyes. They were his eyes, as she remembered them, but better. She felt like she could fall into them—that she was falling . . .
She could hear his voice as he led her into the bedroom. “But love never dies.”
“What?” she asked, as he maneuvered her to sit on the edge of the bed.
“Love and death, my dear. They are real and solid though you repeat all the mantras of the world. They are the twin rocks which have sunk every empire and made fools of the wise.”
She lay down as he lifted her legs up onto the bed, resting her head on the pillow as he spoke.
“Do you mind?” he asked, placing his cold hand over her heart.
“Mind? Mind what?”
“I’m going to kill you. I’m going to use you. But,” here he undid a button of her blouse, “I’m still—there’s some memory, of what we were.”
“Ghosts can’t hurt people.” Somewhere in the back of her mind, she remembered that truism.
“Can a ghost eat or drink?” he asked her.
She thought a moment.
“No,” she said.
He leaned down over her, pulling her collar away from her neck.
“But I can,” he whispered and drove his teeth into her neck.
The moment of pain quickly passed, and she lay there as he fed in a sort of daze, little crediting what was happening to her beyond just another false dream of Samsara, or whatever they called it. She didn’t see him cutting his own wrist, but she felt the viscous drink of his dead blood dripping into her mouth.
It tasted sweet, salty, and delicious. Like drinking candy. A new life was creeping into her. She grabbed his arm and brought the cut down toward her mouth. Lifting her head to meet it, she began sucking at the wound.
One life ends, another begins, she reminded herself as the last vestiges of her native blood were drained away.
Mort, her dear Mort, rose, pulling away that wonderful cut along his wrist. She saw him differently now, not as a ghost, not a haunting regret, but as—a new, foreign word crept into her vocabulary—ba’ali, she thought, wondering what the word meant.
The drink was sweet, but she felt so thirsty now, thirstier than she had ever felt in life.
“Just lie there,” he said, as his hands undressed her. “Ambrose will be along this evening.” She felt cold, even before he’d taken away all her clothes. He turned the light off beside her bed, casting the room in darkness. Still, her eyes, somehow, could see everything just as well, or even better, in the dark. Mortimer moved over toward the door.
“As I have loved you,” he said, his hand resting on the knob, “I want you to love him.”
“Oh yes,” she said hungrily as the door closed. She most definitely would; she would do anything he said, anything to alleviate this thirst.
Tale Told 