Annie touches my arm as I arrange the lavish lavender, pink, peach, and white roses in a vase.
"Ahhh!", I scream.
"Miss?", she asks, wide-eyed. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to startle you so badly. Are you okay? Are you remembering that man..."
"Annie, it's okay", I interrupt.
She stares at me. "Pardon me, Miss, but I don't think it could be..."
"Annie, leave this alone, okay", I insist and march off as her eyes follow me.
I spend the rest of the day writing in my father's study, now my study. Annie clears her throat every time she enters the room. I roll my eyes. She brings me some tea.
"I think spring has finally sprung", I say cheerfully the third time she refills my water glass but clears her throat so I know she's coming. "Some peas for dinner I think."
"I'll tell cook", she says quietly and leaves.
I hate that I have to spend my entire day without him, that I have to sit down to dinner without him, when I would love to talk to him over roast beef and red wine, watch him wipe his lips, feel him kiss my cheek and rub my back, pat his tummy asking what's for dinner, lean my knee against his under the table. Especially today when I have something important to talk about. That's when I realize I'm as bad as he is—I'm living in a fantasy world in which he and I are a normal married couple, the events at Allerdale Hall never happened, and we can spend all our time in my father's sunny home staring into each other's eyes, sighing with contentment as he sinks deep inside me, whispering how much he loves me in my ear, and raising our child together. That he's never leaving me, rather than looking more and more ready to move on every day.
Why are we able to be together happily only in our fantasies? And have I really chosen a dead man over Dr. Alan McMichael, my best friend, savior, and the man I once desperately wanted to marry?
I'm getting to know his body as well my own, what touches turn him on the most, what he likes to hear, the smell of him, the feel of him, every indentation in his arm muscles, tickling his long narrow feet flopping off the edge of the bed...dammit, Edith! Stop. Dinner is slow and lonely.
Mind made up, I scribble a note quickly and hand it to Annie. "Can you take this across town for me?" I ask and she quickly departs.
Later, I'm reading in bed and biding my time, but it's getting darker later this time of year. He shows up about 8:30.
"The house closed up for the night?", I hear as he walks into my bedroom. He removes his clothes and lies down next to me, holding his arms open for me.
"I need to talk to you."
"No good conversation ever started that way", he says.
"It's...I've had a few dreams about Lucille. She was screaming and threatening me and repeating that you're hers. I brushed them off as nothing, but last night it got pretty intense and I dreamed she was banging on my door. This morning, I found a woman's fingernail grooves driven into it. Could she really be trying to get in my house?", I ask.
He removes his arm, and he's nearly shaking. He sighs loudly, looks down at the coverlet, and minutes go by awkwardly. "I figured 'out of sight, out of mind', what a mistake", he finally says, rubbing his temples. "I'll go back. I'll go back, I have to. She has to be dealt with."
"No, Thomas! You're not going back there. She'll kill you again and even if she doesn't, you might as well be dead to have to live with her. No..."
He smiles sadly. "I'm happy you don't want me to leave. But I think there's little choice. Does she know about the baby!?", he suddenly gasps.
"No, I don't think so. Not yet. I guarded my thoughts carefully."
He lets out a deep breath. "Thank God. But it's only a matter of time. I wish you would have told me this earlier. We're lucky she hasn't gotten in yet."
"Thomas?", I ask, clutching him.
"Dammit, I thought she couldn't leave Allerdale Hall, I thought she was trapped there", he says.
"What color is she?", I ask.
"Fuck." He rubs his temples again. "I have to go back."
"Thomas, what color is she?", I ask again.
"Black", he spits out.
"Then I don't see why she can leave there either..."
"Because things change when you're dead. You learn fast, how to move, how to do things to the living...she's a monster and she knows where I am, how to get in your head, and basically how to get in your house", he moans. "She was powerful in life, she's powerful in death. I have to get rid of her. Our son will inherit Allerdale Hall one day, and Pamela, Margaret, and Enola don't deserve to have to be around her."
My heart always falls when his other dead wives are mentioned.
"I think we should confront her here...", I say.
"No! Edith, no, I won't have her in your home..."
"Listen to me, Thomas. She has bad memories of this place; this is where my father caught you both. This isn't her source of strength, she doesn't know this house, this is my home, not hers. This time she's the invader, not me. And don't forget Alan will be back soon with his exorcist. I'll have a talk with him. I think together we can stop her", I say.
"You have no idea what you're saying, Edith, you don't understand this world. You don't know what it's like, and you still don't know her if you think a bad memory is going to weaken her."
"She's in my territory now", I remind him. "If you go back there, Thomas, you'll never come back and you know it." I wipe a tear away.
He loses the fight to not weep himself and clears his throat of unshed tears. "I love you, Edith. I love our baby. I will go deal with her, exorcise her, kill her, or even...become hers again if it would save you. It's the fate I deserve for everything I did. This...is just a daydream. We both knew it couldn't last."
"Thomas, don't say that. I don't want it to be...that."
"I have to go, Edith, there is no argument. I have to go back and deal with her. I will probably go on to what's next with her. She's my responsibility, she always was, and it's past time I did something about her. We're in this situation because I didn't have the strength to do it before. But now I do", he answers.
"Thomas, no."
"Edith, I have loved you for so long." He cups my face and kisses me. "Please tell me you love me before I go, please, even if you don't really mean it...I'll give her my life again, that's all she really wants." I run my fingers over his high cheek bones, his thin lips, his crooked nose. I know every inch of him.
"You gave your life to her once, did it change anything?", I ask rhetorically. "Did it make me safe? Thomas, stay, fight with me. I need you, the baby needs you. We can't survive without you. What if she comes here while you're there? We need you not on this one occasion, we need you for good. We need Daddy."
Tears glisten in his blue eyes and he smiles tightly but sweetly. He rubs my belly. "Daddy", he repeats. "Have you made up your mind, then? Do you want me back? For good?"
"There was never any question. I chose you once, and believed it was the biggest mistake I ever made. I sat in easy judgement of myself, but I was lying to believe I would do a single thing differently. I just don't want to lose you, and you're dead."
"I will find a way to stay with you. Hear me, Edith, I don't care what I have to do, if I have to defy a god himself, I will find a way to stay with you, my darling", he swears. I wipe a tear off his cheek. "If you want me for your husband and your protector...I'm yours."
"I love you", I promise.
"I love you too."
We cry in each other's arms, and I fall asleep. I sense myself opening my eyes and I don't know which side of consciousness I'm on. I hear him repeating himself: "I will find a way to stay with you. Hear me, Edith, I don't care what I have to do, if I have to defy a god himself, I will find a way to stay with you, my darling. I love you."
Standing in front of me, dressed in an ethereal white gown, is Lucille before she died. Tears are pouring down her cheeks. "I hate you", she whimpers, "I hate you. I hate you." Blood starts to drip from her eyes as it falls into puddles on the floor, as I scream. "And I. Will. Kill. You."
I wake with a start, sit up and gasp. Thomas clutches me and looks fervently around the room.
"Did you dream about her?", he asks.
"Yes, she was here. She said she was going to kill me..." I fall back into his arms. "She said she hated me. She..."
I scream. I can't look at butterflies or moths. Not since Crimson Peak. I can't, I can't, but...the floor is covered with dead huge black moths.
"It doesn't matter what she says. She won't touch you."
"Look at the floor, Thomas! She was here! She was in this room!", I shout. He snaps his fingers the ecoplasmic moths disappear. He clutches me tighter.
"You're squeezing me, you're squeezing me!" I protest as he cuts off my air.
"Sorry", he responds, loosening his grip. "I just..."
"I know." I cup his face in my hands. "I know, baby, I know."
"You don't know, you can't, you're not dead. I was possessive of you when I was alive but...damn it! This feeling, it burns. I don't want to be away from you for a second, I worry about you constantly." He buries his face in my breasts. "I can't go on without you. I want..."
"I know", I respond, kissing him. "I know, I know, I know, I love you." We're tearing each other's clothes off when the bell rings.
"Who?", he asks.
I run to the stained-glass window.
"Thank God, it's Alan!", I cheer.
He rolls his eyes. "Just exactly what I want to hear from my wife, how thrilled she is another man is at the door."
I roll my eyes back. "Thomas, we need to work together. I sent him a note."
"So you don't believe I can protect you", he says. He's five years old again being told he's not manly enough, and I curse myself. I should have given him some notice.
I turn to run out of the room. He grabs my arms. "Aren't you forgetting something?"
"Hmmm?"
"Your clothes?", he asks, raising an eyebrow.
"Don't give me that look and don't be jealous", I say, and he pulls me into his arms.
"You're asking too much." He crushes his lips to mine
"Then please just try to get along with him long enough to get rid of your sister", I ask.
"I will try", he promises. "But his mind hasn't changed." Thomas stares at him out the window. "He still wants you. He's more determined than ever to marry you. He wants to take you away from me. There is only so much understanding I am capable of showing."
I shake my head and pull away, but he yanks me back.
"I have to get dressed!", I shout.
"You're mine", he says.
I roll my eyes at him.
"Say it", he commands, then changes his voice when I glare at him. "Please, say it. Please remind me you agreed to be my wife again. You know how badly I fear...losing you." He cuts off.
"I'm yours", I answer. "And you are mine."
"Edith, I want to renew our vows. I was never the husband to you I promised to be", he says.
"I think that's a great idea but we have to survive first! We have to get rid of her, now please, let me go..."
"I know, I know, it's just...for me, there's nothing to survive for without you", he says.
"Clothes", I repeat.
"Even if you wear my overcoat, you're not going down there without me", he smirks, and kisses my hand. "Do not even consider it."
"I had no intentions of going down there without you", I inform him, pulling him into a kiss.
He smiles and rubs my cheek. "My Edith."
"Now stop that and let me get dressed!"
"But it's so much more fun getting you undressed", he laughs, and searches for his own clothes on the floor.
I throw on a dress. It generally takes hours and Annie's help to dress as a proper Edwardian lady, but I have to go grab the door.
I take his hand as we head out of the bedroom, and I feel like he's truly changed so much in the last few weeks. I tuck myself under his arm and he smiles, holding me close to him. I feel...safe with him. Which I honestly never did before, not like this.
"You can allow some breathing room", I joke, "The minute we walk into together, he'll know the score."
"I want to make sure he knows the score is in my favor", he says.
Annie has let Alan in the door and he stands in the foyer, shaking rain off his coat. Reminds me far too much of another night.
"Edith", he says, nodding to me. "Sharpe, I see you're still here", he adds.
"Yes, and I will stay here to protect Edith", Thomas assures him.
"Your note didn't say much", Alan says, avoiding a confrontation for now. "Just that you needed my help to get rid of a ghost." He stares at Thomas.
"It said a bit more than that. Lucille has returned. I need your exorcist. I'm sorry about how we all parted when you were last here, but I'm begging you to help. She could hurt my child...", I say.
"You never have to BEG for my help, Edith. I wonder what you're used to think that you have to beg for a man's help", Alan snipes. Thomas's eyes get large as saucers, but he doesn't say anything thankfully. "But my "exorcist" is out of town unfortunately..."
"Oh no. Alan, where did you find him? I need real help fast...", I start.
"Well I'm here. I learned a few things since all this happened. I will banish her myself", he says.
Thomas rolls his eyes. "McMicheal, you're insane if you think you can banish her. If it could be done, I'd already have done it myself. Give Edith some salt and sage and she could banish an ordinary ghost herself..."
"I think I just might", Alan adds viciously.
"Be my guest. If Edith wanted me to leave I would have already..."
"*I* want you to leave."
"I hope you don't think I care what you want."
"Stop!", I shout. "Both of you. I need your help and the best the two of you can do is start a dick-measuring contest?"
"Edith!", Alan yelps, "When did you start talking like that?"
"Darling, that seems excessive", Thomas starts.
"Oh shut up, both of you. Alan, I need a real exorcist", I say.
"He'll be back by the end of the week. But I will protect you until then." He opens the bag at his feet and pulls out twisted stacks of sage, bags of salt, and several other charms and crystals.
Thomas rolls his eyes again. "I didn't know you'd stopped being a doctor and started a business as an occult charlatan", he spits.
"Thomas, enough!", I insist. "It can't wait that long. Is there someone else?"
"I'll be here in the meantime, sleeping near you to keep you safe..."
Thomas takes an aggressive step forward. I place a hand on his arm to hold him back. "Did you just suggest you were going to sleep with my wife?", he asks.
"No, he didn't say that", I tell him. "You didn't, did you?"
"Of course not. And she's not your wife, she's your widow..."
Thomas takes another step forward, and I put two hands against his chest.
"What DO you have in mind, Alan?", I ask.
"Two are better than one, and I came prepared. The sofa in your study is fine. I'm staying."