There's an old voice in my head that's holding me back
Well, tell her that I miss our little talks
Though all reason insisted that it was a dream, I could not manage to remember that I was dreaming.
The parlor in our Paris apartment had always been decorated in light colors and illuminated with wide windows, but it felt unusually pale and the light from the windows deceptively bright, for no warmth filled this place. My mother’s cane thudded loudly against the wood floor as she approached. Reason, at least, insisted that a spirit would not be so tactile, but neither was there a physical explanation for the form that stalked towards me.
Bright red blood bloomed on her lips and dripped from her mouth as she hissed, “You could have stopped this.” Black flesh flaked from her cheeks, falling over her long white gown like ash. I had never seen my mother in a white kimono like this; it was one reserved for corpses, and I could not even be certain that she had been dressed in white after her death. Though I had been assured that all would be taken care of, I should have tried to help her, should have thought to at least ask. Instead, I hadn’t seen my care of her through to the end.
“Your fault,” she snarled, “your fault,” and the blood from her lips dripped onto the bodice of my white wedding gown as she loomed over me.
I clung to the curve of the armrest and tried to back away into either of the empty seats beside me, but I could not bring my body to act. Her rotting, ice-cold hand gripped my arm like a vice. “You could have stopped this,” she repeated, and the pungent smell of vomit and garlic spilled from her mouth and into mine.
Don't listen to a word I say
The screams all sound the same
“You could have stopped this,” she gasped, over and over again, like an actor who had forgotten his next line. I wanted to sob, but I swallowed it down. I felt not just useless, but helpless as her hands tightened around my arms. Then her mouth opened without sound, and as blood spilled onto my chest, she leaned forward as if to consume me.
I could no longer contain it. I screamed.
I sat up with a start, lungs trembling. I pressed my hands over my mouth as if I could take back whatever terrible noise I had made. But my tears persisted. I dug a handkerchief from my bedside table and decided a cup of tea was in order.
I took the lamp with me and moved as silently as I could. The house creaked terribly, and I winced at every misstep. I would learn, eventually, how to move through the house with little noise, but my first venture felt deafening.
It was foolish to be so terrified of a dream. In some part of my mind, I could hear my mother scolding me for being so impractical and pathetic, but that vision was so small in comparison to the corpse that consumed me each moment I closed my eyes.
Something creaked, though my feet had not moved. I turned to the study, thinking perhaps Adrien had heard me after all and come to check on me, but the study remained closed and dark.
Instead, I saw her for the first time.
In truth, I smelled her before I saw her. She was announced by a gentle wafting of something floral, something I could not yet name. And though my small light was not quite enough to truly illuminate the second floor balcony, her long-sleeved white chemise was in such contrast to the dark paneling of the walls above that her movement was rather easy to follow. She glided from the west wing to the east, as light and airy as the lace edges of her nightgown, which was cinched above the waist in the fashion of the twin girls pictured below her feet, and I knew at once that I had just seen the ghost of Émilie Agreste.
Though the truth may vary
This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore
read A Lamb to Slaughter on AO3
