A Guest in the House

It hurt, a little. I felt like I had put on a suit of armor and twisted a key at the side, chasing the air out, fitting it closer and tighter to my flesh with every turn. But I found that it kept me in a Shape. And how wonderful. A Shape. How dizzying.

I used to dream of dragons. I would find them, panting, pacing. Sung inside damp caverns. When I lived through them they would release their riches in a stinking swell of gore and glittering jewels…and I, beneath…would find stillness in the hot viscera.

But most of the time I don't feel here at all. I'm not here. I'm not here.

At night, every noise could be her. I know she’s here now, right now, even though she won’t show herself to me. (I tried to find her the other night, down by the front door like before, but nothing came to greet me this time.) And I just can’t shake the feeling… that there’s a guest in the house, and I am being a terrible hostess.

I don’t sleep for days after seeing her. And when I finally do, my dreams are tangled, dripping things.

I WAS MURDERED. I WAS MURDERED AND MY MURDERER’S WHORE CALLS HERSELF MOTHER OF MY CHILD. RAISES MY CHILD. FEEDS MY CHILD. I DID NOT KILL MYSELF. PATHETIC BITCH. STUPID COW. HE KILLED ME.

David tells me the first week they lived here, Crystal had nightmares about the attic, about things dripping down from it at night. She would stop crying until he put a lock on it. There’d been animals in there, David said. Making nests. Are they still there, I wonder? Did they just learn to be silent? What did Sheila do when Crystal cried out at night?