A/N: A Halloween story!
Amid darkness and light, good and evil, heaven and hell, Satine hovered. She was trapped in the Purgatory of slammerkins and saints, a spectra spirit chained, chained in spiderwebs of diamonds and death.
The moon was large and bleeding in the black of sky. Streets were empty and leaves skittered rampant across them with the chill of wind. Streetlamps shed pale beams of ghostly light, the kind that makes your skin crawl and your blood turn to ice. And in the tiny garret above the Moulin Rouge, which itself was a phantom, the young writer crouched over the board.
He'd purchased it secondhand; the letters were faded but he didn't care. In the phantasm of candlelight, white pillars with flickering flames that taunted mercilessly, the board held magic and magic was what he needed.
Hands shaking, the writer traced gothic letters spelling out her name. S. A. T. I. N. E. They'd told him this was the first step. In a few moments, she would be here and with him.
Around him, her pictures were strewn about the floor safely in the confines of white daisies he'd drawn in chalk. A lock of her hair, the dress she'd worn on the day she died. He'd touched nothing since her death; this was the key to bringing back her spirit.
"Satine, send me a message.
Come back, Satine. Just for
tonight."
Tonight was her night of freedom. She could
slide from the depths of the grave and rise once more, a hidden illusion of her
former self, to stalk Parisian streets.
Now she too was what, as a child, she'd heard tales of. The ghosts.
Thousands and thousands of them, Revolutionary aristocracy bedecked in
their jewels . . .only their heads were missing. Ashen soldiers. Mothers
and children, eyes gray, skin pallid and chilling to the touch. Satine could walk among them, a
glitter-glimpse of sparkling diamonds.
"Satine, send me a message. Come back, Satine. Just for tonight."
And she did. Climbing stairs on feet that made no noise, she entered his garret, gasping when she saw him. He sat in the center of what seemed to be childishly drawn white flowers and her things were scattered among the mess. Christian, illuminated by the pale flicker of a flame, hunched over a Ouija board. In his eyes glinted perfect raindrop tears with the same reflection as diamond prisms. They fell as soundlessly as her footfalls.
My heart aches completely, every hour, every day. Only when I'm with you does the pain go away.
He felt her presence.
The tiny hairs on the back of his neck stood straight up and he
shuddered deeply, goosebumps rising with the cold she brought in with her. "Let's dance."
Tormenting hands grabbed his and off into the abyss of sky they went. She laughed as she spun his fragile, haunted
body with inhuman strength, her teeth menacing white as stars, her eyes
glassy. They danced across the sky,
never stopping. He ached and panted,
breath kicked out of him. "Dance with
me, Christian! Don't stop!" Icy fingers with long, oval nails dug into his dry
and dirty hands. Her clutch was that of
the black velvet-cloaked death, slipping silently into his life to grab him and
steal him away. On and on went the
madcap waltz and he was tired, so tired.
"Don't let me go!" Satine was laughing still, mocking him, tearing out his heart with her gray-green glass eyes. "Don't drop them! If you love me, you will not let me go!"
He gasped in vain for air and in that moment released her
hands.
Down.
Down.
Down.
Down.
In his mind, her words.
"My feel for you is decaying in front of me."
FIN