Chapter 2
Little Fox
E
I’m wrenched awake by the sound of shattered glass.
I sleep most of my days away now. The more time passes, the less strength I have, which leaves me almost no time to spy on the neighbors.
I’ve been losing steam the last few years, wasting away into a ghost that barely has enough stamina left to remain conscious, let alone play pranks on unsuspecting visitors.
When I manage to escape the oblivion that threatens to keep me longer every time, it feels like falling to earth at full speed. It always knocks the wind out of me.
I blink my eyes open, wondering what caused it this time.
The sight of an eyeless, gray-skinned man with his mouth sewn shut boggles my brain.
There’s a monster at the door. In my home.
What the actual fuck?
The surprise and anger hit me all at once.
My lantern lies in pieces across the rowan threshold, shards of glass embedded in the scalp of some ridiculously frightening, naked man.
The grimy thing peels them from his flesh, then spins around and vanishes into the heavy mist, along with a handful more just like him.
Blood streaks the limestone beyond the double French doors, staining the porch and the kitchen floor. It comes from a girl—but not just any girl.
The most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.
Loose strands of red hair hang from her messy French braid, her eyes squeezed shut and overflowing with tears. She’s a burst of color in my gray half-life. I drink her in, every line of her face, every luscious curve under that red plaid skirt.
She watches the mist for a moment, her nostrils flaring, but the monsters are gone.
The long tail of her braid cascades like fire over one shoulder, her white button-down shirt sheer enough to reveal the black lingerie hidden underneath.
Sparkly earrings frame the shell of her round ear, and a constellation of freckles highlights her youthful features.
Blood slips between the clenched knuckles of her right hand, tremors quaking her entire body, her pulse fluttering at her neck.
Stifling a sob, she cradles her injured hand to her chest and wraps a knitted shawl over it.
A fierce, breathless roar slips from her throat as she clears the threshold with her foot, sweeping the broken glass and lantern inside the house before slamming the double doors shut and turning the bronze locks.
Once the heavy bolts are in place, she sinks down to the polished hardwood floor.
A bruise pulses on her bottom lip, already turning purple. She looks so battered, and yet she forces her breaths to level out and applies pressure to the deep wounds on her calf.
Her resilience stirs something in me.
I don’t get out much anymore. Most days when I manage to escape the darkness, I idly drift through rooms, unseen and unnoticed.
A ghost knows more about silence than laughter, more about despair than beauty.
I’m awfully familiar with the emptiness, the quiet ache of watching time pass without touching it, without being touched.
I’m a specter in a world that moves on without me.
Something about her splits the dark and scratches at the stone where my heart should be.
One single, forlorn thud—the barest echo of a pulse—shakes my chest. The lonely heartbeat rattles everything I thought I understood.
I don’t know how to place it, how to contain it.
I am a ghost, and yet for that one fleeting instant, I’m alive again.
I crouch in front of her, wishing I could heal her wounds or even pass her a bandage. I’m desperate to do something. It’s been years since I’ve truly wanted to exist, to reach someone.
Should I speak?
Should I not?
In my experience, people don’t react well to ghosts. Only Mabel and Devi didn’t run and scream when I made my presence known, and I don’t think spooking this sweet little fox would accomplish much.
I can already imagine the outcome if I tried. Her eyes would widen. Her breath would catch. The fragile thread holding her together would snap as she recoiled from something she couldn’t see, couldn’t touch, couldn’t escape.
In her current state, meeting a ghost would only give her one more reason to be afraid.
I clench my fists and hold them tightly to my sides, frustrated by my own impotence. Every instinct screams at me to do something—anything—but I’m trapped in death. I can only watch as she rests her forehead on her knees and bites back her strangled sobs.
So I stay silent, even though it feels like cowardice.
Even though it hurts.
Years of drifting through life and passing through walls have taught me a thing or two about accepting one’s limitations, yet I feel utterly impatient and unsettled.
A phone rings, blaring the chorus of the Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black”. My little fox paws at her plaid skirt with her uninjured hand and brings the phone to her ear.
“Max. Max, are you okay?” the masculine voice asks in a rush.
Max… How sweet.
“I— Mabel summoned Kerri and me to the house, but she wasn’t here. Monsters attacked us in the gardens, Nick. I think— I think Kerri’s dead,” she sobs.
“Was it the Reds?”
She shakes her head. “No. There was mist everywhere, and the monsters were definitely males.”
“Where are you now? Are you safe?”
I’m so jealous of this man. In a couple of sentences, he managed to level out her heartbeats and soothe her pain. I’d give anything to take his place, to be able to settle her with just my voice. Is he her lover?
The shiny diamond ring on her left hand twists my gut.
Fucking hells, he better not be her husband.
“Yes, I’m in the house,” she answers.
“Wait for Mabel there.”
Her heart-shaped mouth opens and closes, her pink tongue darting out to touch the swelling at the corner of her mouth. “I can’t stay here. I’ve got surgery this week.”
“Maxie, I love you, but you can’t go to the hospital. You shouldn’t leave the house until we know more. I’m in a bind, here. I can’t make it home until next week, but I need you to be careful. Smash the mirror, like when we were kids.”
“If I break the mirror, Mabel might not be able to come home,” Max squeaks.
“Mabs will find a way. You remember the rules, right?”
She nods. Her wide green eyes are glossy and unfocused, like she’s no longer fully here, but caught in a trance.
Nick continues his instructions, carefully walking her through each step.
“Drink your tea three times a day, no mirrors, no going outside, and any blood spilled should be bleached off the floor and the rags purified with fire.” He sighs at that, then adds, “I’ll warn the others to be extra careful. Love you, sis.”
Sister. The itch between my shoulder blades eases, and I force my fists to relax. He’s her brother, not her husband or lover. I’m glad. But that ring… There must be someone in her life.
“Love you too, Nick.”
Max heads to the sink. A small piece of broken, blueish glass from my lantern is wedged in her palm, and she winces as she pries it out under the running water. With minimal fuss, she cleans the cut and wraps it up in gauze before taping it with tan-colored adhesive.
When it’s done, she grabs a hammer from the utensil drawer and marches over to the round mirror mounted on the living room wall, set a little back from the purple corduroy sofa facing the TV.
After the barest quiver of her lips, she covers her eyes with her lower arm and smashes the reflective glass to bits, using the hammer claw to dislodge the leftover shards until the whole thing lies in pieces on the floor.
She sets the hammer down on the kitchen table before sweeping up the glass, tidying the kitchen and scrubbing her coagulated blood off the hardwood with her bottom lip tucked between her teeth until the floorboards are clean and shiny.
My mouth opens on a silent warning when she pauses to consider the trail of blood staining the limestone and porch, but she doesn’t step outside to clean the rest.
My shoulders sag in relief.
She builds a fire in the hearth and burns the bloody rags, her chin trembling as though she’s holding back tears with every scarred bit of her soul. After the last of the rags have crumbled to ash, she brushes her knees off and heads upstairs.
I can’t help but marvel at her courage.
Who is she? I’ve haunted these halls for decades and never imagined a beauty like her even existed, let alone that we would cross paths.
Without taking off her clothes, she crawls into bed.
I hesitate at the threshold, because this is not the room I remember.
I’ve only been back at Mabel’s for a few days and hadn’t yet found the strength to venture upstairs, but her knitting room has been completely transformed in my absence.
What used to be a dull little space where spindles clicked and wool piled in baskets, where the air smelled of lanolin and dust, is now a piece of some enchanted meadow.
A painted forest rises from the walls, the brushstrokes so alive they almost move.
Pines, rowan, and willow trees, along with Douglas firs, climb to the ceiling, their trunks and canopies detailed and lifelike.
Periwinkle curtains hang from the posts of the baldaquin bed and shimmer in the faint draft.
The mattress is piled high with embroidered purple and blue pillows and quilts, with built-in shelves tucked beneath it and crammed full of books.
Fairy lights are strung across the ceiling in wide arcs from corner to corner.
My little fox has made herself a nest.
I drift closer, curiosity getting the better of me. I want to know everything about her and the circumstances that brought her to this house.
By the time I realize I'm invading her privacy, I've already abandoned all pretense of decency. The top button of her shirt has come undone, revealing the hem of black lace underneath. Her red mane spills from her braid in loose curls, and I’m tempted to comb through the remnants of it to set them free.
Max is the very shape of femininity and strength, soft where she chooses and unyielding where she must. She sighs into the night and closes her eyes with the confidence and vulnerability of a maiden who clawed her way through every trial alone.
A saint.
A martyr.
A temptress.
A divine creature too dangerous to name, all of her within arm’s reach while I burn for a taste. Her curled-up frame leaves just enough space in the bed for a forlorn ghost to squeeze into, and I can’t resist the urge to sit beside her.
The slight dent I make in the mattress steals my breath. It’s been years since I’ve left so much as a trace upon this world, and I blink at the sight of it. I feel different when she’s near. Stronger.
I could stare at her forever, never letting her out of my sight, and haunt her until the last star burns out.