I still do not have many readers or reviewers...but since I am compelled to write I shall continue regardless.

Chapter 13

Chronicles of the Silent Ghost

Magic? There is no magic…not anymore. Magic is but an illusion—a trick at best—a manipulation and conjuration of the senses to fool and weaken the comprehension of thought and logic, leaving the mind in a most vulnerable state to be swayed by the puppet master. A charm, a trick, a lie, an altered reality. Magic—no such thing exists. No magic. No hope. Terminate it in the advancing steps. Only an illusion—and its master—this phantom.

Perhaps this ghost is nothing far from an illusion itself, but then she breaks the barrier between the living and the undead with her touch. To think with her mere touch! Unwanted emotions and past memories flood back. The dam is broken. There is no turning back now. There is no retreat.

"No tears," I said quietly. Had I uttered these words as I strived to recover from my grief? I could not bare this anguish, not with her here. She feeds this pain. She commands it. "I must return you."

"What do you mean?" She asked as she gazed up at this phantom in her confusion. She does not understand what power she holds over this ghost. Her power is great and dangerous. There is sadness there and pain. "Return me? I am in my dormitory, am I not?"

"This is but an illusion," I answer. This confuses her further, I muse to myself. There is a long silence exchanged between ghost and mortal.

"Do not take me back." I was astounded by her words. Is this defiance?

"You dare command me?" My brow knitted.

"Tell me what you want," she said. "You said you wanted to drive me mad. Why? For what reason?"

"You see…" My words were slow. "I know who and what you are. Here, I find that there is perhaps something better here than merely driving you mad. You feel superior is this regard, having held deathbed hands and watched as your loved ones parish, but you are afraid…but of what? Applaud yourself, you have managed to astound a ghost."

"I don't understand…" She looked down. Her body shook. Her heart pounded. These were all symptoms of fear. Death is a good thing to fear. But ghosts?

"How did you cheat death?" she asked. I almost laughed.

"You ignorant, cruel girl," I whispered. "You look angelic with your brown hair, and your sweet face and huge eyes, but that is your illusion." I turned from her. "I did not cheat anything or anyone." I paused and buried my grief. "You wanted me to come, you wanted this—"

"You thought so?" Her voice gained strength with anger. "When you caught me thinking about the dead and pleading with death? Is that what you thought? And you came to what? Console? Deepen my pain?"

I shook my head and took several steps away from her. My illusion shattered at that moment. We stood on the roof once more. The snow was falling still and the city was dark. I turned on her in an angry flash.

"Very pretty still," I said. "And at your age. They—you friends—they hate you for your pretty face, you know it? Your good friend—Mary-Ann, the blonde one with the shapely body and smart husband, and before him the string of lovers that she cannot count. She thinks you have a prettiness that she can never earn, produce, or paint on. She hates and envies you. As for Jacques—you recall your first husband? He loved you, yes, he loved all, but he could not forgive your prettiness either."

"Why do you know Jacques?" She asked. "What do you know about my life? How do you know?" Tears burned down her cheeks.

"I speak what you know," I replied. "I see the dark passages of your mind, I know the cellars where you yourself have not been. I see there in those shadows that your father loved you too much because you resembled your mother. Same brown hair, brown eyes. And that your best friend laid with your young husband, Jacques, one night." I paused to let her wallow in her anguish.

"Stop this!" She regained her strength. "Have you come to be my personal demon? Do I deserve this? I? And you tell me that I am not responsible for those deaths? How are you going to drive me mad, I would like to know? You're not sure yourself. Look at you. You shiver and you're a ghost. What were you when you were alive? A young man? Maybe even kind then, and now twisted out of—"

"Stop," I had commanded her. "Your point is clear."

"Which is?" She asked defiantly.

"That you see me clearly, as I see you," I answered coldly. "That memories and fear are not enough to make you tremble. I was very wrong. You seemed a child, an eternal orphan, you seemed so…"

"Say it. Weak?" she asked.

"Perhaps," I answered to quickly for her liking. "It is not a word I favor."

"Why do you want me to feel pain and fear? For what? Why? What did the dream mean?"

I felt my face go blank with perhaps what was shock. I raised my brow and then I tried to speak, but I changed my mind. I could not allow this girl to defeat me at my own game. She would wish she never challenged me.

"You could be beautiful," I said. "You almost were. Is that why you fed on alcohol and let your pretty shape go to waste long ago? You were thin as a child. But you covered yourself, but to hide from whom? Your husband? Your fiancé?"

She did not respond.

"You are perhaps even a little beautiful," I whispered with my cruel smile as I deliberately tortured her. "But that will not make up for your sins." I looked at her, reading her deepest thoughts. I said nothing more.

"Where does this lead?" She asked. I had succeeded in hurting her. She was vulnerable…too vulnerable. She looked at me with pleading eyes.

"Little girl at heart," I sang darkly. "And wicked and cruel as little girls can be. Only bitter now, and needing of me, and yet denying it. You drove them away…but only this ghost stays."

"And tell me what to do, ghost," she whispered. She pulled her cloak around herself and shuddered from the wind. I was immune to the cold and snow.

"What am I to tell?" I study her features. She was sincere and at loss.

"What is all of this to you and why do we speak of it now?" she asked. "You are covered in snow, but you are not cold. You are not warm either, are you? You look like a creature of the dark with your phantom's face, but you aren't a man. You aren't even alive. Where did you get the music, the incredible heartbreaking music—?"

I was furious. "Spiteful tongue," I growled. "I am older than you can dream. I am older in my pain than you. I am finer. I learnt to play my music to perfection before I died. I learnt to play it. I possessed a talent for it in my living body that you can never understand with all of you dreams and fantasies."

"I hate you," she whispered.

"I am going now," I said. "I will come when I please, you can be sure of that." I turned my back. My cape billowed behind me.

"You have no right. Whoever sent you must take you back." She made the sign of the cross.

I almost smiled. "Did that little prayer do you any good? Do you remember the miserable funeral Mass of your daughter, Michelle? Why, I should play a hymn for you. My violin can play it. It is not common, but I can find it in your mind and play it, and we can pray together."

"It hasn't done you any good," she said, "praying to God." Her voice was strong but soft. "Nobody sent you."

I turned and stared at her.

"Get out of here and leave me be!" She crossed her arms and glared at me.

"You do not mean it." I said. "Tell me that your pulse is not ticking like an overwound clock. Your tireless desire of me is obvious. Jacques, Julien…You have met a man in me such as you have never seen, and I am not even a man."

"You're cocky, rude, and just horrible!" She glared at me and her face reddened to my satisfaction. "And you are not even a man. You are a ghost of someone young and morally vulgar and ugly!"

I only hope that those who are infact reading this and reviewing this tale do enjoy it. Please review and let me know what is wrong with my story...

-Erik's Other Lover